


A Gang of Idiots

by sixxon



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Comedy, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humor, M/M, Mafia AU, Possible violence, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn, eventually angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-05-27 11:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 29,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6283111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixxon/pseuds/sixxon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Mafia AU) Akaashi remembered the first time his father introduced him to the Bokuto Family heir, Bokuto Koutaro. Akaashi also remembered the first time he realized he absolutely, undeniably, hated him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Birth of War

            Akaashi remembered the first time his father introduced him to the Bokuto Family heir, Bokuto Koutaro. Akaashi also remembered the first time he realized he absolutely, undeniably, _hated_  him. He remembered he was only eight years old when he first met Bokuto, and only eight when the boy, only a year older, had tackled him to the ground while he was reading, losing his favourite book to the garden fountain in the process.

            Of course, Bokuto had just laughed, shouting non-sense about how if he was going to take over the family business, he should learn to be more alert.

           

            _“What if I don’t want to take over my father’s position?”_

_Bokuto made a strangled gawking noise, “but being the family boss is awesome! Have you seen my dad!” he boasted proudly._

_Akaashi supressed an eye roll, “yes,” he began, “however the rest of your family is loud and chaotic.”_

_“I don’t know what_ chaotic _means, but Asahi isn’t loud! Neither is Kiyoko!” Bokuto said in defence._

            Akaashi hadn’t known it then, but this would be the first of many, many fights between him and Bokuto. Most of those fights began when Bokuto took his teasing too far and ended up destroying something of Akaashi’s, which was often, and the rest came from Akaashi’s utter lack of interest in taking after his father. His hatred wasn’t even due to a family rivalry, the discontent solely lied with Bokuto, and Bokuto alone.

            Whether or not Bokuto hated him or not, it was really anyone’s guess. However, Akaashi figured Bokuto had to hate him just as much, especially since the older still picked on Akaashi like an incessant third grader. Bokuto would even go out of his way to annoy Akaashi whenever the two families had get-togethers. This time was no exception to that rule.

            Akaashi had _just_ come back from his room to grab other book when he saw Bokuto standing with Kuroo, another member of the Bokuto Family, looking suspicious. Thinking they were planning another prank on Tsukishima, a member of his Family, he simply shrugged it off and headed back towards his folding chair by the bonfire.

            Mistake.

            As soon as Akaashi sat down, he plummeted through the chair and landed harshly on the grass as he cursed loudly in shock. A loud roar of laughter came from across the courtyard and Akaashi’s head immediately snapped up to face the noise, watching as Bokuto and Kuroo threw their heads back and clutched at their sides. With a low growl in his throat, Akaashi attempted, and, he really did try, to stand up, but the lawnchair refused to relinquish him from confinement. Granted, he did manage to stand, sort of, because the chair had him sticking out his ass like some kind of wounded duck. This… unfortunate event only lead Bokuto too practically keel over, banging his fist on the ground like this was the funniest thing he had ever seen in his life.

            Despite his impairment, he strode (hobbled) over to the two boys angrily, “what is your guys’ problem?!”

            “N-now, now, Ak-kaashi,” Kuroo managed between wheezing for air, “if yo-you talk like that who’s-who’s gonna help you get out?”

            Akaashi spared a glance at Bokuto, who was still on the ground, laughing like an idiot.

            “I’ll help you out, Akaashi-san,” a voice from behind him said.

            Akaashi turned to see Daichi, a member of his Family, and gratefully nodded, thanking him for the help.

            Kuroo pouted, “Daichi-san, why’d you ruin the fun?”

            “Why did you two ruin a perfectly good lawn chair?” Daichi shot back.

            “It was all in good fun, right Akaashi?” Bokuto grinned, repeatedly smacking Akaashi’s back like he was burping a toddler, however Bokuto used more force than a loving parent ever should.

            Akaashi pushed Bokuto’s hand away and straightened himself out, turning back to Daichi, “thank you again, Daichi-san.”

            Daichi nodded back, saying not to worry about it before he rejoined Sugawara, another Bokuto Family member, back on the deck attached to the manor.

            “Akaashi! You should have seen your face! You totally weren’t expecting that! Normally, you wouldn’t even sit down!” Bokuto gushed, buzzed off of his victory.

            Akaashi sighed and reminded himself _not_ to yell at Bokuto in front of both families. While it was common knowledge the two hated each other, Akaashi tried to keep his anger to a minimum when they were in large groups. Nearly every time Akaashi reprimanded Bokuto for something, Bokuto would get in a huff about it because, whatever he had done, was just a prank.

            “Just a prank” included things like putting lube on every door nob and handle in both Akaashi’s bedroom _and_ bathroom, taking the ink filters out of all of his pens and the lead out of his mechanical pencils (Akaashi swore to only buy wood pencils after that incident), hiding his novels and replacing them with erotic manga, crazy-gluing a rainbow tentacle dildo to his bedroom wall, and replacing the contents of all Akaashi’s shower gels, soaps, shampoo’s, and basically anything used for cleaning his body, with hot sauce. Those were only the pranks he had done in the past year.  

            “Bro, I think Akaashi might actually be pissed,” Kuroo elegantly pointed out, “look, he’s shaking, bro.”

            “Akaashi?” Bokuto asked quietly.

            Akaashi sighed heavily and unclenched his hands, but he was still shaking. Bokuto and Kuroo were looking at him like he had grown a second head, and he didn’t realize why. After a moment, he realized it was because he was laughing, loudly and bitterly, eyes almost tearing as a side effect.

            “Uh… Akaashi?” Kuroo muttered, sounding almost concerned. After all, it wasn’t like Akaashi to laugh at one of their pranks.

            When Akaashi had finally stopped his onslaught of laughter, he turned to address Bokuto, smiling, “If you want a war, that’s what I’ll give you.”

 -~-

            That’s what he had said, but honestly, he was lacking in the creativity department when it came to pranks, that was more Bokuto’s area of expertise. Akaashi shuttered at that thought, did he actually just _compliment_ Bokuto on something? At least Akaashi knew he was smarter than Bokuto, so he could use that to his advantage; he also knew all of Bokuto’s habits, call it experience.

            After many hours sitting behind a computer screen, looking up ideas, Akaashi had a full plan consisting of at least one prank a week. Obviously, he couldn’t start with a bang, and he knew exactly what to start with.

            In his journey through the internet, he came across a particular website whose specialty was in sending people awful prank gifts. This website was going to be the source of two of his pranks, those would be the first one, and the one that would be oh-so graciously delivered to Bokuto on his birthday.

 -~-

Skip ahead a week and Akaashi was getting a call on his cellphone. He picked it up and saw that the caller was Bokuto. Smiling to himself, he put it on speaker, and was he ever glad he did.

            “BRO WHY?!” Bokuto shouted through the phone, “once would have been _whatever_ , but twice?! Twice?!”

            Akaashi slapped a hand over his mouth, he was right, he knew Bokuto would fall for it twice.

            “Bokuto-san, it’s your own fault for not checking the address on the letters before you open them.”

            “Akaashi, do you even know how _hard_ it is to get rid of glitter?! Do you?!” Bokuto screeched.

            Akaashi chuckled, “I’m glad you liked your cards full of glitter.”

            Bokuto groaned, “Akaashi, what have I ever done to you?”

            Unable to resist the temptation, Akaashi rolled his eyes and glared down at the phone, “well one thing would be putting oil all over my bathroom floor, as well as in the shower.”

            “A joke, Akaashi, a joke! Why can’t you—”

            Akaashi hung up, he had to get to work on planning his next prank.


	2. A New Venture

           After three consecutive pranks at Bokuto’s expense, which included setting his shoe on fire at another get together (he hadn’t been caught, in fact, Bokuto thought Kuroo had done it), pouring an entire salt shaker into Bokuto’s red bull, after which he offered Bokuto a glass of what the older thought was water, but was actually vodka (which Bokuto chugged before practically hacking out a lung), and a nearly failed attempt of drawing on his face with marker (Kuroo caught him, but he had decided to join in Akaashi’s prank), Akaashi decided it was time to ask the only other member of his Family who was petty enough, sly enough, and willing enough, for help.

            Daishou Suguru.

            Now, Daishou… Daishou was most likely the biggest trouble maker in the entire Akaashi Family, however, no one really knew the extent of it since he was so polite. Akaashi had once watched him trip and spill hot miso soup all over Kyotani during dinner, apologize profusely, offer to get a first aid kit, and turn away, smirking like he had intended the whole thing. Akaashi knew better though, that morning Kyotani had decided to wear Daishou’s new suit to a meeting without telling him. Needless to say Daishou was not against ruining his own suit with miso just to pay back Kyotani with a first degree burn. Akaashi was glad Daishou apologized, because Yahaba looked like he was about ready to deck him.

            “So… let me get this straight,” Daishou started, “you want me,” he gestured to himself, “to help you prank the Bokuto heir?”

            Akaashi nodded, “it’s harder for me to prank him than the other way around because the only times I can get into Bokuto-san’s room is when we have a get together,” he paused, “but usually Bokuto won’t leave me alone long enough to do it.”

            Daishou laughed, “it’s about time!” he shouted, clapping a strong hand onto Akaashi’s back, “Koutaro’s been annoying you for years, I was wondering when you’d ask for my expertise.”

            “Do you have an idea?”

            “Oh, I have several.”

            Akaashi steeled himself, waiting, “what are they?”

-~-

            The next gathering was at the Bokuto Family estate, which worked perfectly, even though he knew Bokuto wouldn’t leave him alone, Daishou had promised to sneak into Bokuto’s room and set up all of their pranks. Fortunately, Akaashi had convinced Daishou _against_ some of his more dangerous and destructive ideas, such as removing most, if not all, of the screws in Bokuto’s dresser. However, they did make a list of things for Daishou to do, which included:

  * Putting beef bouillon cubes in Bokuto’s shower head
  * Covering the toilet seat in plastic wrap
  * Hiding twelve alarm clocks set for 12 different times in random places around Bokuto’s room
  * Crazy-gluing all of Bokuto’s soap bottles shut



And finally,

  * Putting several pieces (spanning the entirety of his bed) of sliced lunch meats under Bokuto’s fitted bed sheet.



 

 

            Sufficed to say, Akaashi would be getting a lot of angry phone calls from Bokuto within the next few days. For now, though, Akaashi was forced to stay near Bokuto to make sure he wouldn’t interrupt Daishou until he came back out of the house. This was one task Akaashi absolutely hated, especially since Kuroo was there too.

            “— Can you believe he actually did that, Kuroo!” Bokuto said wildly, flailing his arms all over the place.

            Kuroo laughed and clapped a hand onto Akaashi’s shoulder, “dude, did you actually send two envelopes full of glitter to my bro?”

            “He did!” Bokuto interrupted, “I didn’t think he had it in him; but I still have glitter _everywhere._ ”

            “You did fall for it twice in a row, Bokuto-san. The second time was your own fault.” Akaashi stated, shrugging Kuroo’s hand off of his shoulder.

            “You fell for it twice?!” Kuroo roared in laughter, “seriously?”

            Bokuto responded to him by simply crossing his arms and pouting, dejected and kicking his feet across the grass. Kuroo still laughed though, pointing at Bokuto and repeating that he couldn’t believe he had fallen for it a _second_ time _immediately_ after the first time. Bokuto only got more upset by this and went to sit on the porch, knees pulled up to his chest. Akaashi sighed and rolled his eyes before making his way over to Bokuto again, he wouldn’t let Daishou be interrupted and have his plans ruined.

            “Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said quietly, Bokuto didn’t respond, “you do realize this is how I feel when you prank me, right?” Bokuto grumbled, “Look, everyone knows we hate each other, so why do you bother taking it so far?”

            “You’re pranking me now, too…”

            Akaashi sighed and sat next to Bokuto, “that’s called payback for eight years of your pranks.”

            “Who said I hated you?” Bokuto asked, it was quiet, almost inaudible, but Akaashi heard it.

            He snorted, “no one told me, Bokuto-san, it’s clear from how you treat me.”

            “What if I don’t hate you?”

            Before Akaashi could respond, or even process what Bokuto was saying, he heard a voice call for him.

            “Akaashi!” it was Daishou, “come here!”

            Akaashi nodded at him and turned back to Bokuto, “see you,” he said before running to Daishou’s side.

-~-

            It had been about three weeks so far and Akaashi had already received four phone calls from Bokuto about his pranks (Bokuto still hadn’t figured out the bouillon cube yet, but he had complained that everyone was telling he smelled like beef). Despite these small victories, Akaashi only had one prank left, and that was the teddy bear he found online for Bokuto’s birthday. The bear was designed to keep playing an annoying birthday tune for three hours, non-stop, once Bokuto pressed the ‘on’ button. But Akaashi wasn’t worrying about it now, especially since it was en-route to Bokuto’s and he was too busy sitting in inner turmoil to really care about that.

_“What if I don’t hate you?”_

            Bokuto’s words were loud and clear in Akaashi’s head, despite how quietly the older had said them. Akaashi had never thought that the possibility of Bokuto _not_ hating him was even possible, and yet he just had the possibility thrown in his face by the very person himself. Not that it mattered if Bokuto hated him or not, it wouldn’t stop Akaashi from hating him anyways. After everything Bokuto had put him through, it was almost impossible for Akaashi _not_ to hate him.

            Bokuto had been a thorn is his side since they first met, and not once had Bokuto shown him that he had grown up in the slightest. Akaashi thought that Bokuto had said that just to throw him, that maybe by saying he didn’t hate Akaashi that Akaashi would stop pranking him, which would definitely not happen. At least, being the son of a Mob Boss, he was homeschooled and so was Bokuto. If they had gone to the same school and were normal students, he was sure he would hate Bokuto even more than he did now.

            A knock on his door threw Akaashi out of his stupor and his head snapped to the source of the noise.

            “Yes, come in,” he said loudly.

            The door creaked open and Kenma stood on the other side. Kenma was one of the quieter members of his Family and Akaashi was close with him, though, not as close as Kenma was to Kuroo, those two knew each other like the backs of their hands, despite being from different Families.

            “Boss wants to see you,” he muttered.

            Akaashi nodded and Kenma did the same before taking his leave. He pulled himself from his desk and strode to his fathers meeting room. It was a large room, full of tapestries, silks, and other expensive things that Akaashi didn’t care for. His father was, as per the norm, wearing a loose blue and grey yukata and lounging across many pillows.

            Akaashi cleared his throat, “You wanted to see me?”

            Akaashi’s father, Akaashi Kenichi, grinned widely at his son, “I heard you’ve started taking after me and pranking Koutaro, the Bokuto heir. Ah, I remember when I used to prank his father, Hideki.”

            Akaashi looked at the wall beside him, “it’s just payback for what he’s done to me.”

            Kenichi laughed, “I was wondering when you would do that,” he sat up, “so, what have you done so far? I’ve only heard about the glitter and the alarm clocks.”

            “Is this really what you called me to talk about?”

            Kenichi groaned, “it was foreplay, Keiji, foreplay! Of course there was something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Akaashi’s father pouted, “you never play along, I just wanted to get the mood right…”

            “Please don’t call it foreplay; what did you need to tell me?”

            “I want you to over see one of our hotel casino’s, the Grand Onyx.”

            Akaashi froze, his father knew he had no interest in the family business, “why?” he muttered bitterly.

            “You need the experience, you may only be sixteen, but you are my son and the son of the Akaashi Family. You can’t continue to shirk your responsibilities.” Kenichi said, his tone final.

            “But, I don’t—”

            “Too bad,” his father cut him off, “besides, you’ll be accompanied by someone else since the Grand Onyx is a joint venture. If you didn’t need the experience and I weren’t busy with our loan branch, I’d go myself, but I can’t.”

            Akaashi looked at his father curiously, “accompanied by who?”

            Kenichi smiled, and Akaashi didn’t like it one bit. That was the smile his father gave him to say “I’m making you do something you hate that will potentially be dangerous, but it’s fine because I think it’s funny.”

 _Asshole._ Akaashi thought to himself.

            “Now, tell me about those pranks you pulled.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading again :)  
> BY THE BY the glitter bomb and singing teddy bear are from this website -> https://shipyourenemiesglitter.com/ which I absolutely recommend you send because that would be hilarious. Thanks again to Vinny (Gothitella on tumblr and Ao3) for helping me with some of the pranks!


	3. A Bad Day

Later during the meeting he had with his father, Akaashi was informed that he could bring along another member of the Family, as long as it wasn’t Daishou, because if anyone was more aware of his true nature than Akaashi, it was Akaashi’s dad. The reason he kept Daishou around was because of Daishou’s father, who Kenichi was indebted to. It was also because Daishou was one of the cornerstones of the Family’s loan branch, specifically the collection part.

That was the thing about being raised in a mafia family, everyone had skills that other, normal, people didn’t. Even the teenagers of Akaashi’s Family could kick someone’s ass. Still, being teenagers, they often acted like idiots; case in point: Bokuto. Akaashi knew, he _knew_ , that Bokuto could easily kick anyone’s ass, he was trained enough, but he insisted on pulling pranks at Akaashi’s expense instead. It was in this aspect that Akaashi was lacking. Akaashi could not beat anyone up, he wasn’t trained for it. Sure, he could throw a good punch or two, but he would evidently lose any fight he was to partake in. Akaashi had never partaken in any real fights in the first place, so why start now, right?

However, Akaashi was good when it came to money, strategy, or anything analytical. This was a result of all the extra homeschooling he sought out on top of his current schooling. If he ever wanted to go to university, ever wanted to live somewhere besides the Akaashi Family estate, he needed to excel in school, and fortunately for him, genetics had blessed him with an innate knack for studying, Akaashi figured he got it from his mother.

Akaashi was walking down to the main room to see who was available to come with him to the Grand Onyx. He noted, sadly, as he looked around, that most of the older members were gone. Akaashi wasn’t surprised though, it was rare to find even two older Family members lurking around and not working when it wasn’t meal time.

As per the norm, Yamaguchi and Tsukishima sat by the entrance to the back porch, farthest from Akaashi. Yamaguchi was talking his ear off and, to anyone who didn’t know the two, it seemed like Tsukishima wasn’t listening. Tanaka and Taketora were taking turns wrestling with Aone, who seemed uninterested and sort of bored with wrestling, but Aone was like a puppy and probably wouldn’t stop until either Taketora or Tanaka gave up their farce. Fukunaga and Kenma sat in the corner playing video games on their PSP’s in silence, as they usually did in their spare time. He looked over to one of the tables and saw Konoha sitting with Kaori, Yachi, and Akane (who was Taketora’s younger sister). It was so like Konoha to be sitting with the girls of the Family, at least, Akaashi thought so.

“Konoha-san,” Akaashi said as he strode over to his table, “what are you doing for the next week?” he asked.

Konoha shrugged, “does it matter? If you ask me to help you with something, I’m supposed to do it regardless.”

“No, I didn’t—”

“Don’t worry, Akaashi, I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” Konoha grinned and spared a glance at the girls, who were now in their own conversation, “now, what was it?”

“Ah,” Akaashi started, “I was wondering if you would mind coming with me to over look the Grand Onyx…”

Konoha laughed, causing Akaashi to look curiously at him, “I’m guessing the Boss put you up to it?” Akaashi nodded, “Then it can’t be helped. Y’know, you should really start to accept the fact you’re from a mafia Family, you’re the only heir, after all.”

“You sound like Bokuto-san…” Akaashi groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I just want to go to university, why is that so bad?”

Konoha cleared his throat, “well, it’s not so much a _bad_ thing… I mean, even if the Boss let you go, I’m sure he’d pull you back here as soon as you finished,” he paused, “you should have started training when you were eight, but the Boss dotes on you. I’m surprised he hadn’t asked you to do something like this sooner.”

Akaashi shook his head, “I thought he acknowledged that I didn’t want to become the Family Boss,” he sighed, “I really should have known better.”

Konoha stood up and stretched his arms above his head, “well, I better pack then, we leave tomorrow right?”

“How’d you figure that?”

“The Boss told me about it before,” Konoha grinned, walking off to his room.

-~- 

The three-hour car ride to the Grand Onyx was… painful, to say the least. Konoha insisted that he should drive instead of one of the Family’s many chauffeurs; mainly because he just got his licence and was excited to drive without one of the older Family members’ guidance. It wasn’t that Akaashi got car sick, though, he felt like he should have considering how Konoha drove, no, it was that Konoha had the absolute _worst_ taste in music. Akaashi thought it was bad enough he had to listen to _every_ , yes _every_ , Hannah Montana song ever released as well as terrible movie soundtracks, but Konoha just _had_ to sing along. It was bad enough he was forced to sit though Hannah Montana’s, _I Miss You_ , eighteen times, but Konoha felt the need to sing, and of course, he was tone deaf. Konoha may have been a “jack of all trades,” but apparently singing didn’t apply to “all trades.”

The Grand Onyx was indeed as grand as its name suggested. Akaashi had only seen it in photos, but actually being there was much, much different. The outside looked like any other random glitzy hotel from Los Vegas, but the inside? The inside looked something of a cross between a Victorian estate and a Roman palace, with large crystal chandeliers and tall columns that Akaashi assumed must have been about three stories tall. Akaashi and Konoha’s shoes clacked on the marble floors of the hotel as they approached the receptionist, who had hair of gold that was pulled back into a neat bun, she practically looked like the human equivalent of a jeweled crown. When Akaashi thought about it, all of the staff looked just as glamourous as she did.

“Hello, how can I help you two today? Do you have a reservation?” she asked politely.

Akaashi nodded, “yes, we do, under the name ‘Akaashi.’”

The receptionist smiled, “of course it is, I apologize for not recognising you sooner, you look very much like your father,” she giggled.

Just as Akaashi said thank you, though he wasn’t sure if what she said was a compliment or not, the woman turned and grabbed two golden key cards from a locked mail slot behind her.

“Here you are,” she said with a smile, “your room is on the top floor, penthouse suite, the other guests who are to accompany you have already checked in, so they should be waiting for you upstairs. Shall I call someone for your bags?”

Konoha shook his head and smiled, “it’s okay,” he stated, “I’ve got them.”

With that, the two boys made their way up to the top floor, which took a minute or so since there were so many stories, not to mention the other guests who were using the elevator. Akaashi hoped he looked okay, most of the other guests he had seen were practically dressed to the nines, while he barely managed “business casual” in his plain grey dress pants and white collared shirt; he didn’t even have a tie on. The main reason for that was to spite his father for making him go to the hotel, but now he severely regretted that decision. Konoha wasn’t exactly dressed to the nines either, but at least he was wearing a full business suit, unlike Akaashi.

As soon as they made it inside the penthouse suite, they heard _a lot_ of yelling. Not angry yelling, but it was certainly loud. Suddenly, something made a loud crash, causing both Konoha and Akaashi to wince.

“BRO! You were supposed to catch that!” a voice shouted.

Someone chuckled nervously, “my bad, bro.”

It was at that moment Akaashi realized why his father really sent him to the hotel.

Forced, uninterrupted, bonding time with the one person he absolutely could not stand.

Bokuto Koutaro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, I hope you liked it :). S/O again to Vinny (gothitella) for her verifying my opinion on Konoha's horrible music taste. I believe Konoha 100% loves Hannah Montana unironically, I'll fight on this, trust me.  
> By the by, I think I'll stop indenting each paragraph, it's really frustrating to do on Ao3 since I can't use the tab button. Though, I really wish I could. :'(


	4. Dinner Time

“Hey, doesn’t that sound like—” Konoha started, but Akaashi abruptly cut him off.

“Don’t say it,” he said, “if you say it, it might actually be real.”

Konoha sighed, “Akaashi, look, you—”

“AH!” Akaashi yelled, “don’t say it!”

“Akaashi?” a confused voice rang out.

Akaashi looked up and saw Bokuto standing around the corner, peaking is owlish head out from the wall, eyes wide. Akaashi groaned as a wide grin split across Bokuto’s face.

“AKAAAAASHII!” he yelled, practically diving at the boy in question.

Graceful as ever, Akaashi dodged Bokuto’s oncoming attack, causing Bokuto to face plant into the tile floor. A boisterous laugh arose from the direction Bokuto had came from and when Akaashi looked at where the noise came from, he saw Kuroo practically dry-heaving as he clutched the wall for support.

“Nice, Akaashi!” Kuroo exclaimed, “nice, nice!”

“Uh, Bokuto-san, are you okay?” Konoha asked, leaning over Bokuto’s body.

Bokuto groaned, “Akaashi! Why’d you dodge?” he asked, not lifting his head.

Akaashi was taken aback, “isn’t that a normal response?” he muttered.

Akaashi watched as Konoha helped Bokuto stand, as soon as they turned to face both him and Kuroo, Akaashi saw the freshly bloody nose that donned Bokuto’s face.

Konoha made a face of shock and looked at Bokuto, “it doesn’t look broken…” he looked back at Akaashi, “I’ll take him to the bathroom to get cleaned up,” he stated, the two of them hobbling away.

“Y’know,” Kuroo said, walking over to Akaashi, “I don’t get why you think he hates you, in fact, he was really excited you were coming because you don’t usually do this sort of thing.”

Akaashi scoffed, “I didn’t want to come, and he was probably just excited to prank me,” he paused, “I didn’t think you two were the people staying with us.”

“Oh, about that,” Kuroo said, changing the topic, “since the Grand Onyx has a three-penthouse floor instead of a one-penthouse floor, this one is the smaller one. Our Boss said that some big name people rented the other two out, so there’s only two bedrooms and a work room instead of four and a work room.”

“I’m guessing you and Bokuto-san already picked your room?” Akaashi asked.

Kuroo snickered, “well, Bokuto tried out both rooms before picking one, so your room is kinda trashed now…”

Akaashi glared at the floor in front of him, “impulsive…” he muttered under his breath.

Kuroo laughed again and picked up Konoha’s bags for him, telling Akaashi that he’d take him to his room. On the way, Akaashi looked around the penthouse. Despite it being the “smallest” one, it was still rather large. There was a living room that was lowered slightly, as if it were a type of nest, and there were dark purple couches that lines the spherical shape of the lowered space. Across from the couches was an extremely large projector screen, Akaashi had to guess it was at least seven feet horizontally, and large, floor to ceiling, windows with black-out shades that were all pulled down half way, allowing the windows to cast bright and blunt shadows over the living area.

Next was the kitchen. Sure, it wasn’t as large as the kitchen in the Akaashi Family estate, but it was certainly luxurious. The counters were marbled and the cabinets and drawers didn’t even have handles. When Akaashi looked curiously at them, Kuroo told him that they were “push to open,” there were no handles to reduce the chance of injury, and therefore, reduce the chance of lawsuits. Above the kitchen there was a sparkling crystal chandelier, similar to the ones in the lobby, but far smaller and less dusty.

Kuroo placed Konoha’s bag down at a large door and pushed it open. Akaashi looked inside and flicked on the light. He was sure the room _may_ have looked nice at some point, but it certainly didn’t anymore. The sheets on the bed were practically _off_ the bed, the pillows were nowhere in sight, the entire mattress itself was sitting diagonally on the bed frame. Akaashi turned his head and saw a smashed vase on the ground; at least he knew where the crash came from when he first came in. Luckily, those were the only things Akaashi could see that were messed up, however, he dared not look in the bathroom.     

“Is that what broke earlier?” Akaashi asked, even though he knew the answer.

Kuroo laughed, “yeah, Bokuto tried to throw it to me, but I wasn’t paying attention,” he shrugged, as if it wasn’t his fault.

Akaashi groaned and called out to Konoha. When he replied, Akaashi make his way over to where he was, Kuroo trailing behind him. There, sitting on the toilet with practically half the toilet roll shoved in his face and up his nose, sat Bokuto.

“I think the bleeding stopped, but he won’t put the toilet paper down so I can check,” Konoha explained, gesturing to the hopeless cause in front of them.

“Tch,” Akaashi moved over to Bokuto, “Bokuto-san, let me see.”

Bokuto grumbled, “why do you care? You didn’t help me up or even check if I was okay.”

Akaashi sighed, “you’ve taken worse falls, Bokuto-san, besides, I’m checking now aren’t I?” he stated, “I didn’t ask before because I thought Konoha-san could handle it.”

Bokuto huffed a bit, but eventually lowered his hand to reveal his nose. Akaashi noted that the bleeding had stopped and gingerly grabbed the toilet paper from Bokuto before throwing it out. Bokuto’s nose and mouth were stained red a little bit from the blood.

“Konoha-san,” Akaashi said, grabbing his friends’ attention, “can you get me a damp wash cloth? Not too warm or cold though.”

Konoha nodded and did as he was asked, handing Akaashi the towel. If Akaashi was good at anything besides studying, it would be first aid. He had often though of becoming a doctor, but he also liked business. Very gently, Akaashi took Bokuto’s face in his hands and gently dabbed at the dried blood, wiping it off of Bokuto’s nose and then off of his upper lip.

Gingerly, Akaashi pushed on the bridge of Bokuto’s nose, “does that hurt?” he asked.

“Uh-uh,” Bokuto replied.

Still, Akaashi moved closer to inspect his nose more carefully, when Bokuto stopped breathing, Akaashi looked up and saw Bokuto’s honey-gold eyes boring into his green ones and, after almost leaning closer, Akaashi immediately let go and, as calmly as he could, took a step back, hoping Konoha and Kuroo didn’t notice.

Akaashi cleared his throat, “well, it’s definitely not broken, and I don’t think it’ll bruise, so that’s good.”

Kuroo laughed from the door frame, “yeah, the last thing we need is you looking like you got into a fight.”

Bokuto laughed, throwing his head back. Akaashi cringed at his sudden movement, hoping he wouldn’t cause himself another nose bleed.

“I’m all good now!” Bokuto exclaimed, standing up and putting his hands proudly on his hips, “besides, Akaashi here said I’d be fine, right? Right?” he laughed, smacking Akaashi repeatedly on the back as he often did.

Akaashi shuffled forward slightly and Bokuto seemed to get the idea the Akaashi wanted him to knock it off.

“Oh yeah,” Konoha spoke up, “did you see our room Akaashi?”

Akaashi shot a glare at Bokuto and said, “I did.”

Bokuto chuckled awkwardly, “eh-heh, sorry.”

“What happened?” Konoha asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Akaashi replied, “because Bokuto-san and Kuroo-san are going to clean up the mess they made.”

“But Akaashi!” Bokuto whined.

-~-

Later that evening, after Bokuto and Kuroo had cleaned up the mess they made and Akaashi and Konoha put their luggage away, the four boys decided they should go down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. Akaashi dressed better this time since he got the chance to put on a tie and jacket, and he was glad he did. Even Bokuto and Kuroo were wearing business suits, despite how much Bokuto had complained about it. Eventually his complaining stopped when Akaashi told him that if he wanted to be the Family Boss, he would have to get used to wearing suits.

The dining room was serving a buffet style meal that night, which Akaashi learned that they did every Monday for dinner. Akaashi offered to save the table while everyone went to get their food and, as predicted, Bokuto practically rocketed out of his seat to load up his plate, whereas Konoha and Kuroo left at a more leisurely pace.

Kuroo was the first one back, he had gotten some roast beef and vegetables, as well as fries, which Akaashi felt didn’t fit with the other things he got.

Just as Akaashi was about to get up, Kuroo spoke, “you know, Akaashi, you deal with Bokuto a lot better than some of our family members.”

Akaashi snorted, “it’s just years of practice dealing with him, anyone could do the same.”

“I don’t think so,” Kuroo said pointedly, “most of our Family members are loud, you know that, but I think it’s good Bokuto has someone like you around.”

“Someone to pick on?” Akaashi asked, though it was more of a rhetorical question.

With that, Akaashi didn’t wait for Kuroo’s answer and simply left to get his own food.

Dinner had been going well, Akaashi had gotten cauliflower soup to start and had already gone back for some pasta which he put shrimp in. Konoha stuck to the more basic foods, such as meat and vegetables, though he had also gotten two slices of pizza. Bokuto had several plates in front of him and his meal practically took up the whole table. Bokuto started off with a trip to the dessert table and had already finished what he got, save for a few things. After that it was pizza, then ribs, then pasta, and then, what he was eating now, steak, mashed potatoes, and a vegetable stir fry.

Akaashi honestly had no idea where he put it all, it wasn’t like Bokuto was fat, if anything he was extremely muscular. Akaashi had to wonder just how good his metabolism was.

Akaashi looked away from Bokuto, who was practically using his fork like a shovel, and focused on his own meal. He twisted his pasta around his fork and just as he was about to put it in his mouth, something warm and mushy hit the side of his face, nearly getting in his eye.

“Pff.”

Akaashi didn’t move as the other boys roared with laughter. Slowly, he put his fork down and looked at the culprit. Bokuto had his head thrown back as he weakly pointed at Akaashi’s mashed-potato ridden face, practically banging on the table with his other hand. At this point, Akaashi was sure that the other patrons were staring, how could they not? Someone had just thrown food inside a very fancy, high-end, restaurant.

“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi muttered threateningly.

Kuroo and Konoha stopped laughing as they watched Akaashi rise from his seat and walk over to Bokuto, who could barely hold in his laughter. Akaashi looked down and noted that Bokuto still had a slice of cheesecake left on his plate from earlier, he recalled Bokuto saying he was going to save it for later. Very calmly, Akaashi grabbed the cake, careful not to squish the wrapper into it, Bokuto didn’t even notice him pick it up.

“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said, “look at me.”

Konoha and Kuroo looked at each other nervously before looking back to the scene in front of them. Bokuto, almost in slow motion, raised his head to look at Akaashi.

“Wha—”

Bokuto could barely get out one word before Akaashi slammed the cheesecake directly into Bokuto’s unsuspecting face, holding his hand there a moment just to make sure the cake would stick. After that moment, Akaashi moved his hand away and the excess of the cake fell from Bokuto’s face and into his lap with a soft _splat_.

After what felt like ten minutes of the two of them just staring at the food on each others faces, Akaashi wiped his hands together and strode off back to the room to wash his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you all liked it, stay tuned for more! :)


	5. Black Casino

The first four days spent at the Grand Onyx were nearly incident free. Thankfully, since Akaashi and Konoha were sharing a room, Bokuto had only pulled two pranks on them. One being the three A.M wakeup call, followed by a four A.M wakeup call (Bokuto and Kuroo were both awake to hear Akaashi and Konoha yell about that), and the second, which Konoha narrowly escaped, was locking Akaashi in the bathroom while they played “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” on a continuous loop as both Kuroo and Bokuto sang along, they let Akaashi out after about an hour and a half because they got bored. Akaashi should have been mad, but honestly, he was just amazed that they kept at the song so long. If it were him he would have probably given up after ten minutes.

Currently, the four boys had just come back from watching over the casino and staff; fortunately they only needed to forcibly remove one patron, and that was Bokuto’s job. While Akaashi sat in the living room reading, the other three boys decided to watch frozen. It was hard for Akaashi to read while Bokuto and Kuroo screamed the words to “Let It Go” at the top of their lungs, but it wasn’t too bad.

Well, it wasn’t too bad until Bokuto grabbed his book and tossed it aside at a climaxing “let it go” before grabbing and throwing Akaashi over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

“Bokuto-san!” Akaashi shouted in alarm, “put me down!”

“Not a chance!” he shouted over top of Kuroo’s singing, “you haven’t played with us at all, and we’re only here for two more days!”

Kuroo stopped singing for a moment to shout, “nice ass, heiress-chan!” before continuing to sing.

Akaashi’s face blazed bright red and he stopped squirming on Bokuto’s shoulder. He could practically feel Bokuto’s eyes on his ass. Akaashi assumed this was how girls felt getting catcalled on the street. Before Akaashi could make it back to “sound mental state,” Bokuto make a loud noise in surprise that Akaashi could only describe as a squawk, before letting go and letting Akaashi slide head first into the purple couch cushions. Konoha roared in laughter before helping Akaashi sit up and looking back to Bokuto and Kuroo, who were now skipping through the movie to find the next musical number, which is why Bokuto squawked.

Akaashi sighed, trying to put the incident out of his mind as he picked up his book and looked for his page.

-~-

The next day was their last day in the casino since tomorrow they would be watching over the reception staff before having their very last day to themselves. The good thing was that they didn’t have to pay for anything since their Families owned the hotel.

As usual, the casino was full of people, luckily not many were drunk, well, not yet anyways, it was still early after all. To Akaashi, the day flew by quickly and Bokuto was very determined with his job of overseeing the casino. Akaashi had never seen him so collected before, it almost made him feel like Bokuto had been replaced with a duplicate.

Unfortunately, when it got to around nine P.M, there was a small issue. Well, not a small issue since there was a man who was raving mad about how the slot machine was eating his coins, which it wasn’t, he was just so drunk that he kept forgetting he put a coin in already. Akaashi had been trying to explain the situation to him with Konoha when suddenly the man walked off in a huff. Akaashi shrugged, it wasn’t like he didn’t try to help, after all.

Akaashi turned away and began discussing meeting back up with Bokuto and Kuroo in half an hour for a break, when suddenly he was pulled into a headlock. Akaashi thought it was either Bokuto or Kuroo, but the look on Konoha’s face suggested that it was something much worse.

“Give me my money back or I’ll cut him!” a gruff voice shouted at Konoha.

Akaashi recognized this as the voice of the man from earlier. He looked as far as he could to the side to see the man was holding a broken champagne glass in his hand, pointing it at Akaashi’s temple. Akaashi was sure that Konoha had been in a situation like this before, but he never had because this type of thing was one of the exact reasons he didn’t want to take over the Family. Konoha tried to take a step closer, raising his arms to show he wouldn’t do anything, but the man grunted and pushed the glass closer to Akaashi’s face.

Konoha froze, “sir, just put the glass down and we can talk more about your money.”

The man flinched, but didn’t relinquish his hold on Akaashi; he smelled of whiskey. He pulled the glass a little father away, but tightened his grip, Akaashi stayed as still as he could, though he could feel himself sweating. Maybe he should have let his Family train him, at least in self defence. If he got out of this, Akaashi promised he would train more with something other than books.

Konoha took another tentative step forward, when the man didn’t move, Konoha spoke, “now,” he said calmly, “put down the glass.”

“NO!” the man snapped, “Bring me my money first!” he slurred, further tightening his grip, causing Akaashi to breath in a strangled breath as the man, unaware of doing so or not, began choking him with his arm.

Still, Akaashi didn’t dare move, he was too worried about escalating the situation and either getting killed, or getting Konoha killed. Akaashi felt his face getting flushed quickly and his hearing became hazy after a little while. He heard someone yelling, maybe two people, three? Were they calling his name? Akaashi couldn’t tell what they were saying because the next second his vision blackened and he felt himself plummet, almost as if he were pushed, to the ground.

-~- 

The ground was pretty soft, at least Akaashi thought so, though he had a massive headache, and the yelling around him was _not_ helping. He put his hands out to help himself sit up and blinked a bit before realizing he was in a bed and, in fact, not on the floor. As soon as he sat up, the yelling stopped and he used the opportunity to clutch his forehead with one hand.

“AKAASHI!” someone yelled.

Said boy looked up and saw Bokuto standing there with Konoha and Kuroo behind him. While they all had wide eyes as they stared at him, Bokuto’s looked like they were about to tear up. Akaashi was confused as to why they would look at him that way, but he quickly realized why. Some drunk asshole had choked him out, and man, was Akaashi ever embarrassed that he didn’t handle the situation better.

Bokuto ran over to Akaashi’s bedside, getting right up in his face, causing him to jerk back, blush spreading across his face at Bokuto’s proximity to him, “do you know who you are?” he said in a panicked tone.

“Bokuto-san, he just passed out for a few hours, it’s not like he was in a coma, the doctor even _told_ you he would wake up quickly,” Konoha said, exasperated; Akaashi figured he had to deal with a lot in the past few hours.

Bokuto ignored him, “do you know me?” he continued.

Messing with him, Akaashi cocked his head to the side, “no, why? Are you famous?”

Bokuto’s head whipped to the door frame to look at Kuroo in fear, “Kuroo!” he yelled, “he has amoeba!”

“Bokuto-san, it’s _amnesia_ , not _amoeba_ ,” Akaashi sighed.

“AKAASHI! You’re okay!” Bokuto practically screeched, jumping onto Akaashi and hugging him.

Akaashi grunted, “Bokuto-san, let-let me go!” he said, trying to push the 73-kilogram boy off of him. Sighing and giving up, letting Bokuto retain his hold on his torso, Akaashi looked at the two boys in the door frame, “so, what happened to the guy in the casino?”

“Well, after Bokuto nearly beat him unconscious, the cops came and the three of us explained what happened,” Kuroo paused and look at Konoha, “Konoha did most of the explaining though.”

“He’s also banned from the hotel,” Konoha added.

“Did he get his money back?”

Konoha looked at him curiously, “no?”

“Good,” Akaashi smirked.

After talking some more, Akaashi discovered that instead of doing another day of work, they would just take their leisure day and then leave the next day. He also learned that Konoha had offered to drive Bokuto and Kuroo home, to which they both got extremely excited at the prospect of a “road trip” with Akaashi and Konoha. Akaashi wondered if they realized that car rides with Konoha are, in fact, _not fun at all_ , but then again, they sang the “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” song for nearly two hours, so Hannah Montana for three would probably be akin to child’s play.

-~- 

The next day it was bright, sunny, and warm, which meant Kuroo and Bokuto insisting on going to the outdoor pool at the hotel. The Grand Onyx had both indoor and outdoor pools, but the outdoor one was far bigger and also functioned as a wave pool. Akaashi had swam for about half an hour out of the three the group had been at the pool already. Konoha was taking it easy, meaning he was talking to girls, which there weren’t many of, Kuroo was currently re-applying sunscreen, and Bokuto, well, he was running around like a child.

“Bokuto-san!” Akaashi called and Bokuto looked his way, “if you don’t calm down you’ll get heat stroke.”

In response, Bokuto gave Akaashi a large thumbs-up with a grin before resuming what he was doing. Despite it being mid September, it was actually quite hot outside, hot enough to sweat if you weren’t in the shade, which there was plenty of since it was so sunny. After a few minutes, Akaashi’s peaceful afternoon was shattered when Kuroo came hobbling into his shaded area with Bokuto hanging limply on his shoulder.

Akaashi sighed, he had told Bokuto to tone it down, now he really did have heat stoke. Akaashi called Konoha over and told him they should just take Bokuto back up to the room and pack instead of staying at the pool. Konoha looked down at Bokuto and nodded, helping Kuroo carry Bokuto back to the penthouse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading ! :)


	6. How Not to Drive

In what Akaashi considered a bitter-sweet turn of events, Bokuto decided that he should drive instead of Konoha after he was nauseous for a half an hour and nearly threw up on Akaashi, narrowly managing to unbuckle his seatbelt before emptying his stomach out of the window before he _demanded_ that he drove. This was sweet because 1) Bokuto wouldn’t be throwing up on him, and 2) Akaashi managed to secure the front seat instead of being stuck in the back with someone who was car sick. The bitter part? Even though Konoha wasn’t driving anymore, the Hannah Montana C.D he had kept on playing; Bokuto had decided that “Nobody’s Perfect” was his new favourite song.

Car-karaoke was a constant for another two hours after Bokuto had taken the wheel, only ending when Kuroo told him to turn the music off, or at least down, because he wanted to sleep and, after a few minutes, Konoha joins him.

Akaashi suddenly realized that being in the front seat has become something less bitter-sweet because now he’s alone with Bokuto with no external guidance from Kuroo or Konoha, which was an exceedingly rare thing, for the next half hour. For the most part it was quiet, save for the radio which was softly playing something acoustic. Akaashi couldn’t tell what song it was, but he realized Bokuto must have switched off Hannah Montana since he couldn’t sing along anymore.

Akaashi decided that the moment is nice, and that he might like Bokuto a little more if he were a lot calmer like he was now. Since Bokuto was preoccupied by driving and Akaashi didn’t have his phone to fiddle with or a book to read, he looked over at Bokuto.

After years of despising Bokuto, Akaashi realized that he’d never actually taken the time to really _look_ at Bokuto’s face before. Bokuto had his golden eyes dutifully trained to the road, Akaashi really had to marvel at his determination. It would be too easy for Akaashi to say that Bokuto was easily distracted, moody, and over all childish, but the part that would say that would be the part of Akaashi that flat out refused to give Bokuto the satisfaction that he thought anything else of him. Despite his hatred for Bokuto, he really wasn’t a bad person, he just seemed to favor pissing off Akaashi more than anyone else. However, he didn’t really know how Bokuto treated his other Family members since whenever Akaashi was around Bokuto would not leave him alone.

Akaashi studied Bokuto’s face some more, for what reason, he really couldn’t say though. He had never noticed the way Bokuto’s short eyelashes curled into loose c’s, or how his honey-gold eyes were large and round in their sockets, complimented well by his heavy eyelids. Akaashi decided that his eyelids were why Bokuto looked so mature even when he was doing something stupid. Akaashi had never realized how nice Bokuto’s eyes really were. No, that wasn’t true, he had noticed it before, he noticed it in the bathroom while he was wiping the blood from Bokuto’s lip. He remembered that he had leaned forward subconsciously to see them better.

Directing his thoughts back to Bokuto’s appearance, Akaashi noticed that Bokuto’s skin was subtly tanned, probably because he spent a lot of time outside, Bokuto had even once described to Akaashi in detail about how he wished he could tan more, but every time he tried he just burned. Akaashi wondered briefly what he would look like tanned, he was practically as white as paper after all. He shook his head, deciding that being tan was not his thing at all.

Bokuto seemed to catch his movement, “does your head still hurt?” he whispered loudly.

Akaashi figured he must have been talking about the incident from a few days ago, “no,” he shook his head again and whispered back, “I just thought something stupid.”

“Oho?” Bokuto grinned, glancing over at Akaashi before training his eyes back to the road, “I don’t think I’ve heard you call yourself that before.”

“That’s because you hardly know anything about me, Bokuto-san.”

It was something in the way his lashes fluttered, Akaashi thought, that made him seem slightly put down by that, but as quick as it came, the moment was gone, yet Bokuto didn’t speak again, the two of them falling into an awkward silence. Akaashi sighed, he had been thinking about asking Bokuto to teach him some self defence since he woke up from blacking out, but he was concerned about the reaction Bokuto would have. He also didn’t want to talk to his own Family about it since his father would likely assume that Akaashi was getting ready to take over the Family, which was not going to happen if he could help it.

Sucking in a quick breath, Akaashi turned back to Bokuto and broke the awkward tension between them, “Bokuto-san, would it be alright if I asked you something?”

Bokuto’s eyes lit up and a bright grin split across his face as he clapped a hand onto Akaashi’s shoulder, the other remained on the wheel, “of course, Akaashi!” he beamed.

Before saying anything, Akaashi shot a tentative glance back at Kuroo and Konoha, making sure they were both still asleep, “It’s about your training,” Akaashi tested out, Bokuto didn’t reply, but his eyes flicked impatiently between him and the road, “would you,” Akaashi gritted his teeth and looked at the dashboard, muttering, “teach me, please?”

Just like that, Bokuto’s face lit up like the fourth of July, jaw dropping dramatically, eyes glittering like fireworks, Akaashi swore he almost saw tears.

“AKAASHI!” Bokuto screamed, letting go of the wheel to grab Akaashi’s arm with both his hands, causing the car to swerve.

Akaashi’s throat strangled out a scream and he instantly reached for the wheel with his free hand, swerving the car back onto the road. A loud thump came from the back seat as Konoha and Kuroo’s unconscious bodies smacked together. 

“BOKUTO!” he yelled angrily, trying to steady the car, “the WHEEL, THE WHEEL!” he screamed urgently.

“Whazzaat!?” Konoha shouted from the back seat, grabbing hold of the closest thing to him, which was Kuroo.

At the same time that Konoha grabbed his arm, Kuroo’s fist rocketed upwards, smacking Konoha in the jaw, causing the boys teeth to clack together painfully, before coming to contact with a loud bang to the roof of the car.

“FIRE!” he screeched in a half-awake panic.

Bokuto let go of Akaashi’s arm to grab the back of his own seat before he turned around to look at the two boys in the back of the car. Akaashi, in a panic, unbuckled his seatbelt and pulled himself closer to the wheel, as he hit the hazard light button with his now free hand. Bokuto was animatedly yelling about Akaashi to Konoha and Kuroo, but they were too busy screaming over top of him to “turn the FUCK around, Bokuto, you need to drive!” and that he was “going to get everyone killed!”

Bokuto huffed, though he didn’t seem truly upset, and turned back around to grab the steering wheel, but ended up grabbing Akaashi’s hands with it. The two made eye contact before Bokuto gave Akaashi a wide grin as he lifted his hands enough to let Akaashi slip his away. Konoha and Kuroo sighed in relief as Bokuto trained his eyes back to the road. Akaashi re-did his seatbelt and took in a deep breath to calm himself down before he turned off the hazard lights.

“Akaashi had the wheel!” Bokuto exclaimed, “we weren’t gonna crash or anything…”

“Maybe, but don’t do that again,” Konoha groaned, “you seriously scared the shit out of me, I thought I was gonna die,” he added, shaking his hands out to cast away his nerves, “what did you want anyways?”

Bokuto’s eyes lit up again as he spoke, “you won’t _believe_ what Akaashi just asked me!” he said enthusiastically.

Akaashi was about to open his mouth to stop Bokuto from telling the other two, but Kuroo beat him to the punch, “bro, we’re here!” he said, pointing out the window at the Bokuto Family estate.

“Ah, really?” Bokuto asked, now distracted.

Akaashi looked back at Kuroo, who winked at him. _That sly bastard,_ Akaashi thought, _he was probably listening the whole time, he even punched Konoha in the chin!_ Akaashi sent Kuroo a steady glare, to which the other boy just grinned and snickered at him.

Bokuto pulled the car halfway into the long driveway leading to the estate and put the car in park. Akaashi looked up to the estate, it wasn’t anything like his home, which was built in a traditional Japanese style, one story with a more modern interior. The Bokuto Family estate was pristine, which was one of the last words Akaashi would use to describe most of the members of the Bokuto Family. The outside of the building was coloured in monochrome, yet it had a large, bright yellow, French style, front door. The building had many large windows that spanned several stories, as if it were more of a business building than a home, but Akaashi chalked that up to Bokuto’s fathers taste rather than from the mutual choice of the whole Family.

Bokuto rapidly undid his seatbelt and jumped out of the car, leaning his head back in, “c’mon Kuroo, help me get our bags!” he declared impatiently before making his way around to the back of the car.

Both Konoha and Kuroo looked briefly at each other before getting out of the car. Konoha stood at the open door to the driver’s seat and leaned an elbow up on the roof as he watched Kuroo pull out his own bags.

“When’s the next get-together?” Konoha asked casually.

“Uh,” Kuroo started, “not sure, we’re having some trouble with the cartel in Toyama prefecture, it should clear up in a few weeks, so probably then.”

“What, did your shipment get stolen again?” Konoha snickered.

Kuroo put a hand on his hip, the other on the trunk door, “that was one time!” he exclaimed, slamming the trunk shut.

Konoha laughed and said his goodbye’s as he leaned down and got into the front seat, shutting the door. Just as Konoha was about to put the car in drive to turn it around, Bokuto smacked his hands onto Akaashi’s window, causing him to jump.

“Roll it down!” he shouted, and Akaashi did, “I’ll call you later, so don’t fall asleep!” Bokuto warned.

“I’ll try not to, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi replied dryly.

Bokuto beamed and gave Akaashi his biggest grin and a thumbs-up. With that and a nod from Akaashi, Konoha put the car in drive, turning out of the Bokuto Family estate driveway and towards Akaashi’s home.

-~- 

Akaashi sat in his room, as he usually did, after he had just finished explaining his trip to his father, who just laughed at his sons’ misfortune. It had been hours since he had gotten home and Bokuto still hadn’t called. Normally, Akaashi would have just pretended Bokuto never said he would call him, and when he missed the call and Bokuto left eight million messages on his phone, he would reply with “phone died” or some other short excuse that didn’t prompt a response.

Akaashi found texting Bokuto to be especially annoying, even if he found text conversations to be a waste of time regardless of who he was talking to. Bokuto’s messages were littered with bad spelling and grammar, not to mention acronyms Akaashi had never once seen in his life before. What the fuck were “hmu, dtf,” and “wyd” anyways? He figured the last two were questions, since they were always followed with question marks, but he didn’t bother to figure it out, nor did he ask anyone. God forbid that one of those acronyms mean something embarrassing if he ever did try to find out, which he wouldn’t. Akaashi briefly thought that maybe he was just making up acronyms to mess with him, but he shrugged the idea off.

Akaashi drummed his pencil onto his desk, he had nothing to do except wait around for Bokuto to call, which he wasn’t at all excited for. He made a mental note to remind himself that he should put the phone on speaker since the first thing out of Bokuto’s mouth would probably be screaming. Akaashi understood why though, it was the first time he had actively sought out help from Bokuto, even if he asked begrudgingly. The reason he had asked Bokuto in the first place was because A: he didn’t want his Family to find out, especially his dad, B: Bokuto was very skilled at fighting, and C: he didn’t know anyone else in the Bokuto Family well enough to ask, aside from Kuroo, but that was a can of worms Akaashi did not feel inclined to open.

He sighed and leaned back into his chair and thought about the “present” he got Bokuto for his birthday, the singing bear. Bokuto’s birthday was in a two days, and Akaashi made sure to leave instructions that it be delivered specifically on the twentieth so it would actually be a birthday surprise.

Akaashi’s phone chimed loudly, startling him out of his thoughts. He picked it up and immediately put it on speaker phone.

“AKAASHI!” Bokuto yelled, “when do you wanna start sparring… or training? What kind of stuff did you want to know? Kuroo told me not to tell anyone, but I don’t know why. Did you ask him not to? I personally think that’s a little strange, I never saw you two talking at any time, so when did you swing that?”

“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said once Bokuto slowed down, “one at a time.”

“Oh,” he replied and there was some shuffling on the other end, “When do you want to start then?”

Akaashi could practically hear the smile in his voice as Bokuto asked and he put his head in his hand, sighing, “how about Saturday?”

“But Akaashi!” Bokuto cried, “that’s four days from now! Too long!”

Akaashi made an incredulous face at his cell phone, “aren’t you busy during the week? Training to be the Boss and all that?”

There was more shuffling from Bokuto’s end, “I can cancel!” he tried to reason, “it should be fine!”

“Then when do _you_ want me to come over?” Akaashi asked.

Nearly immediately, Bokuto shouted, “TOMORROW! Tomorrow at three!”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading as always! Chapters are getting longer from this point on, I will also be putting in more of the plot and other events (can't promise 100% happy things, that would get boring) as of this chapter!


	7. Sunlight

Standing in the work out room in Bokuto’s house was… intimidating to say the least, especially when it was just Akaashi and Bokuto. In Akaashi’s house there was a dojo, the backyard, and a storage shed full of equipment. In Bokuto’s house, there was a state of the art work out room and even an indoor pool, it was clear which Family spent more money in the area of “home improvement,” that was for sure.

Akaashi watched as Bokuto pulled out a pair of punching mitts and slipped them on, “now hit one!” he commanded.

“What does this have to do with self defence?” Akaashi asked.

“Self defence?” Bokuto said, confused.

 _Ah, that’s right, I never told him why I wanted his help_ , Akaashi thought. Bokuto probably thought he was too embarrassed to ask one of his family members for help, either that or he figured that Akaashi thought Bokuto was the strongest person he knew. If Akaashi had to name the strongest person he knew, it would have to be a tie between Asahi (a member of the Bokuto Family) and Daichi, though Bokuto came in at a very close second.

Akaashi opened his mouth to explain, “that’s why I wanted your help… because of the casino incident.”

Bokuto’s grin faltered, but if Akaashi hadn’t been looking, he wouldn’t have noticed, “so, you’re not getting ready to be your Family’s Boss?”

“No, I get why you misunderstood though, Bokuto-san.”

When Bokuto opened his mouth to speak, Akaashi was surprised at the response he was given.

“Oh, well, I’m glad you’re at least learning this much, even if you aren’t gonna be the next Akaashi Family Boss.”

Akaashi stared at him, eyes like dinner plates at how mature Bokuto was being. Normally, Bokuto would make a big scene about Akaashi not becoming the Family Boss, and then the two of them would fight, verbally of course, before someone, usually Kuroo, intervened when things got too petty.

“T-thanks…” Akaashi mumbled.

Bokuto put his hands on his hips and gave the other boy a curt nod, “if that’s the case, then come over to the mirror and I’ll show you some stuff,” he said proudly.

Bokuto pulled Akaashi in front of the mirror and turned him to face it before stepping back for a moment.

“Do you want to start with how to get out of a head lock?” Bokuto asked and Akaashi nodded. Bokuto nodded and pulled Akaashi’s arm around his neck, “Now, hold on tightly, almost like you were putting me in a head lock, but not for real.”

“Uhm, okay,” Akaashi said tentatively, doing what Bokuto had asked him.

Bokuto gripped his hands onto Akaashi’s forearms, “now, there are a few ways to get out,” he started, “I could bite you, or flip you, but this is probably the best way,” he explained.

Bokuto placed his hand onto Akaashi’s elbow, “I’ll put my hand here,” he said, patting Akaashi’s arm, “then I can step around and put my left foot behind you,” he explained, doing just that. Bokuto then turned his head and pulled it out, “now that my head’s out, I’ll kick you in the back of the leg,” he said.

Akaashi braced himself as Bokuto pushed his leg into the back of Akaashi’s knee, making him fall to the ground.

“Seems simple…” Akaashi muttered.

Bokuto let go of Akaashi and grinned down at him, “it’s the easiest way,” he stated proudly, “you should also punch them once they’re down! Now you try it!”

-~-

The rest of the day went by in the same fashion: Bokuto showing Akaashi a move, then Akaashi trying it out. Bokuto told Akaashi that he should build some more muscle for offensive attacks, but Akaashi insisted it was fine since he much preferred to dodge rather than attack. Still Bokuto persisted and Akaashi promised that he would, at least once a week, go running and do some push ups, which was something Bokuto insisted was more fun than staying in all day and studying. While Akaashi didn’t really agree with that, he let the topic go since he knew Bokuto would likely not budge on the subject.

On the walk home, Akaashi remembered that tomorrow was Bokuto’s birthday and he would be getting that ungodly teddy bear from him in the mail. He was certain that Bokuto thought Akaashi had finished pranking him, but that teddy bear would actually be the last prank. After spending a week with Bokuto, Akaashi realized that maybe Bokuto would actually like that stupid bear and wouldn’t mind the song so much. In fact, Akaashi figured he would eventually wash out the battery power and just keep the bear. If he did, Akaashi wouldn’t be surprized.

Akaashi rarely got the chance to walk home from Bokuto’s, especially since he really only ever went over during get-togethers. Sure, there were a few times he’d been dragged there by his father for business or to deliver something, but Akaashi took no interest. He did like the walk between the estates though. The roads were rural and there weren’t many cars, meaning Akaashi was free to walk down the middle of the street if he wanted, he found that he felt a little more free from his life when he did that rather than when he walked on the sidewalk.

His favourite part of the walk was the bridge that sat smack in the centre between both homes. It was an old stone bridge that had moss growing on its sides. The walls of the bridge were just high enough, just wide enough, that Akaashi could sit comfortably on top of it or lean his elbows on the side walls. Akaashi looked over the side of the bridge and out at the setting sky that stained the world around him in warm hues from gold to red. The river under the bridge sat still as it reflected the light from the horizon and Akaashi sighed.

If he were honest, he found the bridge to be much more beautiful at night when the stars and moon lit up the sky. For a brief moment, Akaashi thought that Bokuto would’ve liked this view of the sunset. He could picture the gleam in his golden eyes as they reflected the afternoon lighting, golds and reds illuminating him and giving his ridiculous hair a soft halo, and the broad grin he seemed to always have, donned proudly onto Bokuto’s face. Before allowing his mind to wander more into that non-existent moment, Akaashi shook his head free of it.

He didn’t think that he hated Bokuto as much anymore after being around him so long. Sure, if he had the choice to hang out with Bokuto or listen to a lecture from his dad about work ethic, he would pick the lecture, but at least he’d stop and consider his options, which Akaashi wouldn’t have done before his past week with Bokuto.

Allowing himself the leisure of it, Akaashi pulled himself up onto the stone wall of the bridge and leaned his back against the post by the base of the bridge before he took out a new book from his bag. He wasn’t sure why he’d packed it, just habit Akaashi guessed. Before opening the book, Akaashi turned his head and took in the view once more. He wished he was better at drawing; he would’ve loved to capture what he was seeing. Yes, he had the camera on his cell phone, but Akaashi thought that would take the magic out of it.

-~-

Bokuto remembered the first time his father introduced him to the Akaashi Family heir, Akaashi Keiji. Bokuto also remembered the first time he realized that he absolutely, undeniably, _loved_ him. He remembered he was only nine years old when he first met Akaashi, and only nine when he decided he liked the way Akaashi looked when he was miffed about something.

Okay maybe it wasn’t love at first sight and maybe he was just trying to be dramatic, especially since he had gotten mad about Akaashi not wanting to be the Family Boss. It was more like love at “wow I turned 13 and puberty hit me like a fucking truck and the driver never looked back to see if I lived or not.” Sure he was attracted to girls too, but he had never felt so strongly for someone as he did for Akaashi.

Bokuto figured maybe he felt just as strongly about Kuroo, but that was different, much different, though he loved him too. Bokuto just really, really, _really_ , wanted to be closer to Akaashi. He wanted to be his friend, to help him when he needed it, to support him, he wanted that more than he wanted some dumb romance story where Bokuto would hopelessly pine for Akaashi until he would realize that he was in love with him too. No, Bokuto wanted to be there for him when no one else could be. He wanted to be needed by Akaashi because Bokuto needed him too. Even if that meant just staying friends, not that they were now or anything.

Regrettably, Bokuto made a fatal flaw in trying to befriend Akaashi: Pranks.

Now, Bokuto and many others thought those pranks were hilarious, but evidently, Akaashi did not. So, it was no wonder that Akaashi had grown to hate Bokuto’s guts. Bokuto had tried to stop on many occasions, but he loved the way Akaashi’s nose would scrunch up when Bokuto shoveled food into his own mouth like he was a vacuum cleaner, or the way Akaashi’s right eyebrow twitched, and it was always the right one, he had noted, when Bokuto pulled of an especially petty prank, or even the way Akaashi played with his fingers when he was uncertain, a nervous habit that Bokuto was sure the younger boy didn’t notice, but he wasn’t going to point it out.

Because he was selfish, Bokuto let Akaashi think that he hated him too, just so that he could keep bickering with him and sticking by his side under the guise of teasing him. If he were honest, he would have to say he didn’t mind that Akaashi didn’t want to be his Family’s Boss, sure he might have when he was younger, but not now. What Bokuto really hated was the idea of Akaashi not being a twenty-minute walk away from him, of Akaashi leaving him behind for some prestigious university overseas that Bokuto was sure Akaashi could easily get into if he wanted, which he probably did.

The past week he had spent with Akaashi had been the highlight of the year for Bokuto. He had wanted to share a room with him once he heard Akaashi was coming, but Kuroo told him that Akaashi would just be weirded out by that and to “keep it in your pants, bro…”

Akaashi had just left his house after Bokuto had taught him some self defence, promising that they would practice again next week. However, Bokuto had followed him silently, unseen, it was something he’d made habit of any time Akaashi was walking home from his place. When he made it to the edge of the bridge, he quickly climbed a tree when he noticed that Akaashi had stopped to look out at the river.

From his perch, Bokuto watched Akaashi take in the sight before him. Bokuto’s breath hitched when he noticed that Akaashi had and ever-so-soft smile on his face as he looked out past the bridge. It was a face that Bokuto had never seen Akaashi make before and he’d like to see it directed at him, even if Bokuto might pass out from joy if that were to happen.

When Akaashi sits on the edge of the bridge, Bokuto decides that Akaashi is an angel. Bokuto pulled out his phone and opened the camera and snapped a photo just as Akaashi was trying to tuck some of his short hair behind his ear, his eyes fixated on the horizon. The photo is stunning and Bokuto would be lying if he said he wasn’t thinking of framing it and hanging it in an art galley.

While the light that hits Akaashi’s profile makes him look evermore the image of an angel, Bokuto thinks that Akaashi would look better in the twilight hours of the night with the soft blue glow of the moon bouncing off of his pale face. That was something Bokuto would like to see. Bokuto sits in the tree and just watches Akaashi read until the sun has blinked under the horizon and the moon has barely made its debut on the opposite side of the sky, which is when Akaashi decides that the lack of light is impeding his reading and takes his leave.

Bokuto makes sure Akaashi is long gone by the time he hopped out of the tree and set Akaashi’s picture as his new contact photo for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I think I'll be putting in more stuff from Bokuto's perspective from now on. I had wanted to push it off for another chapter or two, but it seemed like it fit right to put it in this one. While there will be more from Bokuto's perspective, there will still be stuff from Akaashi's, so it'll be a good mix.


	8. Moderation

“Akaashi!” Bokuto’s voice rang through the telephone and made Akaashi flinch when he picked up without looking at the caller, really that was his own fault, “you got me a teddy bear?!” Bokuto was so excited that Akaashi would have thought he was on the verge of tears.

“Yes,” Akaashi responded, “happy birthday, Bokuto-san,” he said dryly he didn’t want his voice to give away the surprize that the teddy had to offer.

“Thank you!” Bokuto exclaimed, and that time, Akaashi was _certain_ he was crying as a gross sniffling noise came through his phone speakers.

“I have to study, Bokuto-san, I’m hanging up now,” he states.

“Akaa—”

Akaashi cut the line before Bokuto had the chance to say something else and turned back to his desk, math problems staring back at him. Akaashi tapped his pencil against his bottom lip gently. He’d been staring at the same problem for half an hour already, and it was a relatively easy question too. Akaashi had been staring at it because, well, he was wondering when Bokuto would be calling him. Sure, he wasn’t aware it would be as soon as it was, which was why he neglected the caller I.D. Akaashi shrugged, he guessed now that Bokuto had called, he could finally focus on his work.

-~-

Around two hours later, give or take, Akaashi’s door was being practically broken down by Bokuto. How did he know? The teddy bear and it’s annoying ass song.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto cried, emphasizing the middle A in his name unnecessarily, while he held up the caramel-coloured bear to Akaashi’s face, “I thought we were done with pranks!”

Akaashi snickered, “I’ve had that one planned since the night you put me through the lawn chair, actually.”

Bokuto sighed, shutting the door behind him and sitting on the floor against it, hugging the bear as is sung loudly, “there’s no off button…” he grumbled.

“That would be the point.”

“When will it stop?” Bokuto asked, groaning.

Akaashi shrugged and turned away from him, “don’t know. I have to do math now, so can you please go somewhere else with that annoying bear?”

Without another word, Bokuto stood and walked over to Akaashi’s side. Akaashi backed up a little from his proximity and the noisy birthday present he held, Bokuto never did understand personal space.

“You forgot to foil this section,” he said as he pointed to a finished equation near the top of Akaashi’s page, “also here,” he added, pointing at another question further down the page, “you forgot to make your two negatives a positive.”

Akaashi looked up at Bokuto, befuddled. He had no idea that Bokuto was good at math, he just didn’t seem the type to be good at school in general, at least, that’s what Akaashi thought. Akaashi then reasoned that, since math is frightening, of course Bokuto would be good at it, he was practically fearless after all. Once, when Akaashi was eleven, he watched Bokuto pick up a centipede on a dare and eat it without so much as a second thought. Have you ever _seen_ one of those things? They’re disgusting.

The teddy bear droned on as Akaashi stared at Bokuto with wide eyes, the stupid toy in his hands singing “happy, happy, happy birthday to you! Happy, happy, happy birthday to you!” as both boy’s gazes leveled with each other.

Akaashi realized he had been staring too long when Bokuto started to go red from the prolonged eye contact. Akaashi looked back at his work and corrected the questions before he shoved the notebook closer to Bokuto, a little red himself. Bokuto hummed and nodded before he pushed the book back in front of Akaashi.

“Perfect!” he grinned happily, “now, can you help me with this?” Bokuto asked, holding up the bear.

Akaashi held out his hand for it and Bokuto handed it to him. Akaashi stood and walked over to his bathroom door and opened it before turning back to beckon Bokuto to follow him. Akaashi moved into the room with his bathtub and begrudgingly pulled the cover off of it, revealing the water he had been saving for his bath later. Honestly, he didn’t want to submerge the bear into the water he had been so hoping to sit in, but Akaashi knew that Bokuto would not leave until the bear stopped singing. Stupidly, Akaashi had clicked the “crazy glue the battery pack shut” option without having the forethought to think that Bokuto might end up just bringing the bear to his house.

Right as Akaashi was about to throw the bear in, Bokuto stopped him, “wait,” he said as he grabbed Akaashi’s arm.

“What?” Akaashi asked, shaking Bokuto’s hand off, “don’t you want it to stop singing?”

Bokuto put his hands on his hips and leaned closer to Akaashi, “I’m just thinking of this now,” he stated, “but couldn’t we just cut the bear open?”

“Do you want to ruin it?”

“Uh… no…” Bokuto said, scratching his chin, “but we could just stitch it back together, right? Asahi knows how to sew.”

Without another word, and with growing embarrassment at not thinking about that sooner, Akaashi covered his bath, walked out of the room with the bear, followed by Bokuto, of course, reached into his desk drawer, pulled out some scissors, cut the bear open, and pulled out the sound and battery packs. Akaashi tossed the bear, now far lighter, back to Bokuto, who caught it gratefully. He looked down at the noisy box in his hands and back up at Bokuto before he walked over to his window, opened it, and chucked the box as hard as he could onto the ground.

The music clunked out as the black battery pack smashed onto the rock below Akaashi’s windowsill. When Akaashi turned back around, Bokuto looked like he was going to explode from holding in his laughter.

“What?” Akaashi said incredulously.

Bokuto uncovered his mouth and burst out laughing, “You-you! You didn’t thi-th-think about scissors-s!” Bokuto said as he pointed at Akaashi.

Akaashi waited for Bokuto’s fit to subside before he gave the older boy a pointed look, “Bokuto-san,” he said calmly.

“What?” he responded breathlessly.

“Get out of my house, Bokuto-san.”

-~- 

A week later, Bokuto sat in his room with the teddy bear that Asahi had finished patching up for him. He and Akaashi had met a few times to train after that incident, though Bokuto still teased him for nearly downing the bear instead of using scissors. While the song was annoying, at least he got an excuse to see Akaashi that day, even if he did get kicked out in the end. Bokuto smiled and held the bear a little closer, it was the first present Akaashi had ever gotten him, even if it was a prank. He felt like Akaashi was finally warming up to him, and maybe, possibly, just barely, warming up to the idea of a _friendship_ with him.

Bokuto had gotten presents for Akaashi on his birthday nearly every year. The first present he ever got him was when Bokuto was ten and he went bug hunting with Iwaizumi and found a massive stag beetle, which he saved until Akaashi’s birthday. Akaashi wasn’t very fond of that one, he ended up setting it free when spring came. Another present Bokuto got Akaashi was a small sketchbook with a doodle of an owl on the first page that said _Happy Birthday_ , but Bokuto had forgotten to sign his own name when he put it on Akaashi’s doorstep and rang the bell before he booked it back home. That was the same year Bokuto realized he had loved Akaashi, he was thirteen then. He wasn’t sure if Akaashi still had that sketch book, but Bokuto figured he must; after all, he would have been more likely to keep it since Bokuto hadn’t signed his name.

Bokuto put the teddy bear down onto his bed and walked over to the bathroom, there was going to be a get together and he hadn’t done his hair yet. As Bokuto pulled out his gel and began working on what he liked to call “the making of a masterpiece,” he thought of how excited he was to see Akaashi again. Maybe he wouldn’t bring a book, maybe he would interact with Bokuto and scold him when he tried to take all the meat from the grill, maybe Akaashi would even smile at him the way Bokuto had seen him smile at the bridge. _Okay_ , he reasoned, _maybe that won’t happen, but a guy can hope, right?_

Bokuto put down his comb, admired his masterpiece, and gave a curt nod to his reflection before going to find Kuroo and ask him when the Akaashi Family would be coming by.

He found Kuroo in the front hall, he was wearing some red shirt with a cat head printed on the front and had his usual bedhead. Bokuto called out to him and Kuroo turned his head and faced his friend with a wild grin.

“Hey, bro,” he said, “what’s up?”

“When is the Akaashi Family coming?” Bokuto asked impatiently.

Kuroo laughed and clapped a hand onto Bokuto’s shoulder, “dude, did you not hear all the noise? They’re all here already, in the common room.”

As soon as Bokuto got into the common room he scoped out Akaashi, his eyes landing on the corner of the room where the pale boy sat idly, writing something in a familiar brown, leather-bound book. Bokuto walked proudly over to the boy and greeted him.

“Hey! Akaashi! No books to read today?” he asked, sitting down next to Akaashi.

For once, Bokuto noticed, Akaashi didn’t shift away at Bokuto’s casually close proximity, instead he closed the book and looked at Bokuto, “I’m making a list,” he stated plainly.

Bokuto was like a hungry dog getting fed for the first time with what Akaashi had given him. It was like, for the first time ever, it wasn’t Bokuto initiating the conversation.

“A list of what?” Bokuto asked, hoping to keep a hold on Akaashi’s attention for as long as he could.

“Universities and programs.”

Bokuto’s heart dropped into his stomach and he laughed nervously, “you’re eager!” he paused, “aren’t you, uh, not going to University until the end of next year? That’s when your home schooling stops, right?”

“Oh,” Akaashi said, as if he had just remembered something, “my teacher says I’m able to skip a grade and take University entrance exams.”

“Where…” Bokuto struggled to find the right words, “where?” he ended up repeating.

Akaashi flipped open the book again and Bokuto saw the owl drawing on the first page flick by before it was pushed flat against the cover from the weight of all the other pages after it and his heart skipped even though it was still in the pit of his gut.

Akaashi’s index finder slid down the page before stopping, “a few in America, like Calarts and Caltech, two in Canada, Universities of Toronto and Waterloo, and then Oxford, in England.”

“Not… University of Tokyo?” Bokuto asked, a littler quieter than was normal for him.

“I’m thinking about it,” Akaashi said, drumming his fingers on the pages of his book.

Desperate for a change in topic, Bokuto points at the leather-bound book in Akaashi’s hands, “that’s a sketchbook,” he said dumbly.

“Yes?” Akaashi said, giving Bokuto a quizzical look, right eyebrow quirked upwards.

“Do you… y’know, sketch anything?” Akaashi nodded, “can I see?”

Akaashi shrugged and handed the book off to Bokuto, “I didn’t draw the one on the first page, I don’t know who did, so don’t ask,” he stated.

Bokuto grinned at Akaashi as he took the book into his hands. He opened the first page and looked down at the owl he had drawn when he was thirteen and needed to supress his blush, the drawing was absolutely awful. The first page after that was just some writing practice that Akaashi had done, dated for December twentieth of the same year Bokuto had given the book to him.

Most of the drawings were of animals or people, members of Akaashi’s Family, and they only got better and better as Bokuto kept turning the pages. Bokuto stopped and looked down at a drawing of a landscape done in pencil crayon dated for the nineteenth of September, the day that Akaashi had been reading on the bridge at sunset. The canal and horizon in the drawing were soft hues ranging from purple to red to yellow, the colours only barely broken by the pencil lines that Bokuto assumed Akaashi had used to sketch out the scene. Bokuto could tell that Akaashi had drawn this out as fast as he could when he had gotten home, adamant not to forget the sun setting over the lake before he could draw it out. Despite the the messy nature of the drawing, Bokuto thought it was perfect.

He flipped to the next page and words permeated it as they dared Bokuto to read them. On the far right side of the page, written vertically, was a single phrase in pen,

“ _Is it not okay?”_

The phrase confused Bokuto, so he turned to Akaashi and pointed at it.

Akaashi seemed to be taken a bit off guard by his question, but then he muttered, “pen test.”

“I thought you didn’t use pens?”

Akaashi shrugged and Bokuto looked back to the rest of the words on the page. The words, he soon realized, were not sentences, but rather the list of Universities Akaashi had been making. Not wanting to look, and knowing there was no more art to be looked at, Bokuto shut the book and handed it back abruptly to Akaashi.

“I like the sunset one,” he said with a forced grin.

“It’s from the bridge between our houses…” Akaashi stated, “I run by there now.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, as always. Also thanks again to @gothitella for giving me some ideas for future chapters, and boy, are they ever painful. I can't wait, I'm so excited I've already written excerpts for chapters 2 or 3 away from now!
> 
> It feels to me like not much happened this chapter, but I'm setting stuff up, I swear!!!


	9. Sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit I'm so sorry.

To Akaashi, Bokuto seemed to be on edge for the past few weeks, even, and especially, during training. Despite this, Akaashi was glad that the two of them were starting to become better friends. It was nice not having Bokuto pranking him each and every time they met. The two of them had come to a mutual understanding of each other, they even learned that they knew more about the other than they had previously thought. Akaashi, much to his own chagrin, had realized he knew, almost always, what Bokuto was feeling, he was a very expressive person after all. He also figured out he was one of few people who knew how to pull him out of a slump, provided he basically knew the cause, which was often, Akaashi had learned.

Akaashi had also become closer with Kuroo, they even exchanged numbers, which was something that came more naturally than he had expected. Both Akaashi and Bokuto’s fathers were happy that they finally overcome their rivalry too.

Back towards Bokuto’s edgy mood, Akaashi hadn’t the slightest idea what had caused it this time. He had asked Kuroo, but Kuroo simply grinned and shook his head, Akaashi didn’t know what that had meant, but he didn’t like it, not at all. Sometimes, Akaashi would ask Bokuto if he thought about going to university, but he was always either met with a vague response or with Bokuto stating that he was planning to be the Family Boss, and he couldn’t abandon his Family. It was in these moments that Akaashi saw Bokuto becoming increasingly irritated. Maybe he was getting more jobs lately and training Akaashi was taking too much time, being a burden on him.

“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said during a break.

Bokuto smiled at him, “what’s up, Akaashi?”

“Well,” he started, “you seem to be irritated lately, could it be that you’re too busy?” he asked, “if you’re busy, then maybe I should come by less, then—”

“NO!” Bokuto shouted, lunging at Akaashi before he set himself upright again, “uh, no, it’s fine,” he said a little softer, “I’m really not that busy…”

“Bokuto-san, I can train on my own,” Akaashi said, “and besides, I need a lot of time to study for my exams—”

“I SAID IT’S FINE!” Bokuto shouted.

Akaashi took a step back and put his hands up in a defensive fashion, “Bokuto-san?”

Bokuto ran a hand through the back of his hair before it dropped to his side limply, “sorry, can we get back to training now?”

Akaashi nodded.

-~-

The rest of the time Akaashi spent with Bokuto that day was stiff and awkward. Akaashi didn’t know what to do about it, and Bokuto didn’t seem to be making an effort to change the solemn atmosphere. Akaashi knew that _something_ had to be wrong, he hadn’t ever heard Bokuto snap like that before… unless he included the time he was put in a choke hold, but technically Akaashi hadn’t been awake for that, so he wasn’t sure if Bokuto had flipped out or not.

Right now though, Akaashi couldn’t focus on Bokuto’s problems, whatever they may have been, he had tests to study for. In a few days, his test for Caltech was coming up, and he really needed to brush up his English, his science, and, well, his everything. Akaashi looked at the clock on his desk, it read 3:45pm, around two hours before he and Bokuto were supposed to train, which they had started doing every other day or so.

Akaashi sighed and leaned back in his chair, he was no where near close to finishing his nightly worksheets in time to train with Bokuto. Weighing his priorities, Akaashi decided that his entire future was a little more important than one training session and called Bokuto.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto answered excitedly, “what’s up?”

Akaashi cleared his throat, “it’s about our training today,” he said.

“Did you wanna start early? Or maybe try something new?” He asked and Akaashi could visualize Bokuto’s eyes shining.

“Ah, no,” he started, scratching the back of his neck, “I have to cancel…”

“Why?” Bokuto asked, cheer gone from his voice, which was now laced with concern.

“Well, my test for Caltech is in four days, so, I haven’t finished my study sheets for the night.”

Some rusting came through the line, as if Bokuto was moving to sit down, “I can wait until you’re done.”

Akaashi shook his head and then realized he was on the phone and spoke up, “that’s alright, Bokuto-san, I don’t think I’ll be done until around eight.”

“I can wait,” Bokuto said urgently.

“No, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi sighed, “You have Family duties too, I can’t keep you from them.”

“I can wait,” he repeated, voice cracking.

“Bokuto-san…”

Bokuto coughed quickly, cutting off whatever Akaashi was going to say, “never mind, it’s fine… I’ll see you tomorrow though? At the gathering?”

“You will,” Akaashi responded.

-~-

Akaashi had indeed seen Bokuto the next day at the gathering. The two of them stood with Kuroo and Konoha, talking about nothing in particular. Bokuto seemed cheerful, but to Akaashi, it felt a little too forced; maybe he was just imagining it. After around two hours of talking and hanging out with Bokuto, Akaashi excused himself to go study, to which Bokuto seemed a little miffed about, but Akaashi figured he should let Bokuto deal with that on his own.

Akaashi flicked on the light in his room, leaving his bedroom door slightly ajar as he sat at his desk and pulled out his science notes, chemistry to be specific. He worked diligently, he only had a few more pages left until he could move on to his biology work.

Akaashi would have finished much earlier… if only Bokuto hadn’t barged into his room with an overly cheerful, “Hey! Hey! Hey! Akaashi, come play with me and Kuroo!”

“I can’t, Bokuto-san, I’m studying, maybe after.”

Bokuto deflated, “you’re always studying,” he muttered, “you might not be done until we leave…”

“I’m not always studying,” Akaashi protested and Bokuto gave him a sad look, “Bokuto-san, I’m only studying so much lately because my test is coming up for Caltech… you know, university?”

Bokuto shifted uncomfortably in the spot he stood, but Akaashi simply continued to stare at his chemistry papers. Bokuto made his way over to Akaashi’s side and Akaashi resisted the urge to sigh in annoyance.

“You can study after we leave!” Bokuto said with newfound confidence.

“Can’t I just finish my chemistry first?”

Bokuto grabbed Akaashi’s shoulders and shook him gently, “Akaaaaaashiiiiiii! Play with us!” he whined.  

“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said, irritated, he turned around to look at Bokuto.

“Hmm?”

“You’re being annoying, please let me study, this is more important,” he said, pointing to his work.

Akaashi watched Bokuto visibly flinch when he said the word _annoying,_ but whatever got him to leave him alone, Akaashi would stick with. Bokuto hung his head and nodded.

“Okay…” he said quietly, “okay.”

With those two words, Bokuto left his room slowly, gently shutting the door behind him.

-~-

Four days later and the words Akaashi had said to him still lingered in Bokuto’s head.

“ _You’re being annoying…”_

Sure, it wasn’t a phrase Bokuto seldom heard, but somehow it didn’t hurt as much when it came from Family members that Bokuto knew cared for him. Akaashi was a different case though. Akaashi wasn’t part of his Family, even if _the rest_ of the Akaashi Family felt like Bokuto’s Family, Akaashi didn’t. Bokuto had been having so much fun with Akaashi that he’d forgotten Akaashi ever hated him, and hated him for _eight whole years_ until he was forced to interact with Bokuto by watching over the Grand Onyx for a week.

_“Annoying…”_

Bokuto pulled his knees away from his chest, it would do him no good to stay sulking like that in his room, especially since Akaashi had already apologized, so he decided to go for a run. Bokuto stood up and stretched his arms above his head before he put on his running shoes and pulled out his I-pod, playing it on shuffle.

He was glad that his room was on the main floor of the house, that way, he could leave the estate without anyone knowing, or even having to use the front door, of course, Kuroo always knew since their rooms were next to each other.

Just as Bokuto was passing it, Kuroo popped his head out of his window, “hey, going out?” he asked.

Bokuto pulled out one headphone and nodded, “I was gonna go running, better than staying in,” he said.

Kuroo nodded in understanding, glad Bokuto was done sulking, “what way are you going?”

Bokuto hummed, “I was thinking through the trails and then around the bridge.”

“Boss says that he wants me to go check on the Miyagi shipments, wanna come after?”

“Nah, I was going to work out,” Bokuto declined.

“Alright,” Kuroo said, “have fun running,” he finished, popping his head back into his room as he shut his window behind him.

Bokuto popped his headphone back in, starting off with a slow jog as he made his way through the forest trails in the light of the afternoon.

Bokuto let his mind wander back to when he was eleven and Kuroo found him crying in the woods, bundled in at least three scarves and littered with Band-Aids because he was a pretty reckless kid. It was right after his first real fight with Akaashi, the first time Akaashi told Bokuto that he _hated_ him. Bokuto is sure that Akaashi had called him annoying then too. It took Kuroo a whole three hours just to convince Bokuto to stop hugging him and go back to the house. Kuroo even made cookies for Bokuto that day.

 _He’s a good friend_ , Bokuto thought to himself with a sigh. It was even because of Kuroo that Akaashi had apologized this time.

“Bokuto-san?”

The named man looked up from his moving feet and slowed to a stop. Slowly, he turned around and saw Akaashi standing behind him, most likely out for a run as well.

“Akaashi?” Bokuto responded, dumbstruck.

Akaashi smiled a little and Bokuto felt his heart skip, “I thought it was you,” he said as he jogged up to Bokuto side, “do you want to run together?”

“Sure,” Bokuto answered.

As they ran, they were mostly silent, which was an odd thing for Bokuto, and Akaashi seemed to have noticed because he stopped running in the middle of the bridge to address the issue.

“Bokuto-san, what’s wrong?” he asked.

Bokuto stopped and turned back around to look at Akaashi, eyes wide, “nothing’s—”

“Don’t lie to me, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said impatiently, stepping a little closer, “you’re not usually this quiet.”

Bokuto shrugged as he pulled his headphones out and hung them around his neck, “it’s nothing…”

Akaashi sighed, “it’s not _nothing_ , you’ve been like this for weeks.”

A low growl came out of Bokuto’s throat as he leaned over the wall of the bridge, gripping the stones with white knuckles, “why do you even care?” he said, too quiet for Akaashi to hear fully.

“What?” Akaashi asked.

“I said, WHY DO YOU EVEN _CARE?!_ ” Bokuto yelled, all in one breath as his gold eyes bored into Akaashi’s wide dark-green ones.

“Why _wouldn’t_ I care, Bokuto-san?” Akaashi said, irritated in Bokuto’s lack of faith.

Bokuto sucked in a sharp breath and relinquished his grip on the wall to face Akaashi full on, “because your taking tests for some _stupid_ schools over seas when there are perfectly good schools here, close by!”

“It’s not like I’m not applying—”

Bokuto cut him off, “you never said you were though! What about your Family? Your dad? Just because you want to go to university doesn’t mean you need to abandon them to do it!” Bokuto took a step closer, fueled on his adrenalin, “Do you even care?” he yelled, “Do you even care that you’re leaving your Family without an heir? You should be staying _here_ not going to some stuck up American school! You shouldn’t be leaving me, leaving everyone, behind!” he cried, “it’s selfish! You’re supposed to succeed your dad as your Family Boss! Just because you want to go to some dumb—”

Before Bokuto could continue, Akaashi’s fist was sent flying directly into his left eye. Bokuto lost his balance when he reached up to hold his face and fell down onto the concrete harshly, scraping his free hand on some gravel. Bokuto looked up with his good eye and saw Akaashi towering over him, fists clenched so tightly that even his extremely pale skin managed to get whiter from his grip. He was shaking, full of rage.

“I thought we were past this,” he said lowly, eyes dark. Bokuto opened his mouth to try and apologize as fast as he could, but Akaashi was faster, “I thought we were finally starting to be _friends_ ,” he seethed.

“Akaa—”

“Sorry,” he stated, right fist unfurling as he wiped at his eyes before dropping it back to his side, “I guess I was wrong.”

Akaashi started to walk past Bokuto, making it to the end of the bridge before Bokuto turned around, “Akaashi, wait!” he cried, reaching one arm out to try and catch him, but he lost his balance and fell onto the street once again.

“Sorry,” Akaashi said again, glaring back at Bokuto, “I have a test for some _stuck up American school_ to get to.”

Bokuto watched Akaashi’s figure retreat towards his own Family estate as he just sat there on the cold ground. When Akaashi was long gone, and Bokuto couldn’t see his back anymore, he pushed himself up and pulled his legs into his chest, wiping his bloody hand onto his pants in the process.

Bokuto sat there and cried until the street lights came on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, sorry if I hurt you, but it was intentional? It hurt me too if that helps.  
> Thanks to Gothitella for helping out again!


	10. Impassionate

When Bokuto got home he entered silently through the side door of his room, Kuroo didn’t pop his head out of the window, so Bokuto resolved that he was either asleep or still on that job. Bokuto shut the door behind him silently, not bothering to turn on the light in his room in favor of letting the omnipotent moon illuminate it, the blue-ish white light was the perfect setting for his solemn mood.

The bruise that was forming around Bokuto’s eye stung, tingling like television static. He reached up to touch his face and flinched back in pain before doing it again more gently. His eye felt swollen; he shifted over to his other eye and felt the puffy skin under it, no doubt a result of his unrelenting tears from earlier.

Bokuto curled himself up on the floor, back against the door and ears tuned to the silent white noise of the estate. This was his own fault, and he knew it too. He had been so caught up in finally being with Akaashi, having him around as a friend he could rely on, he forgot about what Akaashi wanted. Everyone was right, he was overbearing, and loud, and destructive, and obnoxious, and _annoying_. He was _annoying_. He’d known he was annoying all his life, and it hurt that people saw him that way, but for Bokuto to have the person he was in love with for so long confirm this thought, the pain was unimaginable.

“ _I thought we were finally starting to be friends.”_

Bokuto whimpered, it was a hard sound against the soft silence of his room.

Bokuto slept on the floor that night.

-~- 

The next morning, Bokuto awoke to a shaking sensation. At first he thought it might just be an earthquake, but as he peaked his eyes open, he saw Kuroo standing over him, concern etched into his features.

“Bo, Bo, wake up,” he said softly.

Bokuto groaned, going to rub the sleep out of his eyes until a shot of pain made him flinch back.

 _Oh yeah,_ Bokuto thought as he recalled his monumental fuck-up from the night before.

“WOAH, WOAH!” Kuroo exclaimed, pressing his hands down onto Bokuto’s shoulders, “why are you crying, what’s wrong?” he asked.

Bokuto reached up to touch his good eye and pulled his fingers back, they were wet.

“Kuroo…” he said weakly.

“Bokuto, what is it?” he asked again, more urgently.

Bokuto sniffled and wiped his good eye, “I messed up, this is all my fault,” he said gesturing to his eye.

Kuroo frowned, moving to sit beside Bokuto, “tell me what happened.”

And Bokuto did. He recounted every event that had happened until he got home. He tried to repeat what he said to Akaashi, word for word, tone for tone, but when he had said those awful things to Akaashi he was so full of blinding adrenalin that he couldn’t recall them all, but he knew the words he said were bad. He did however manage to relay what Akaashi had said word for word, it was impossible not to after all, Akaashi’s words stuck to his mind like the rocks that were still embedded into Bokuto’s right hand. They would leave scars.

After a round of silence, Kuroo finally spoke, “… but did you mean it, what you said?”

Bokuto shook his head vigorously, making his head pound, “but I can’t take it back,” he croaked out through his tears, “I wish… I just wish I hadn’t… I-I-I-I just _can’t_. I can’t take back what I said,” he tried, unable to properly articulate what he wanted to say.

Kuroo snaked his arm around Bokuto’s shaking shoulders and pulled him closer. Bokuto clung his hands onto Kuroo’s shirt as he stained it with his snot and tears, crying loudly into his best friend’s chest.

“I can’t _fix_ it this time, Kuroo!” Bokuto nearly screamed into Kuroo’s shirt.

Kuroo patted his back, he had no idea how to help Bokuto other than giving him someone to cry on, Akaashi was always better at this than Kuroo was. Kuroo had never seen Bokuto this upset. Bokuto was the type of person to look onto greener pastures whenever something bad happened, never looking back and facing forward proudly, if a bit naïvely. Sure Bokuto often had mood swings, but he always managed to swing back just as quick.

After what felt like an hour of Bokuto debilitating himself between breathless sobs, Kuroo opened his mouth, “I’m sure, if you’re sincere, and I know you are, if you apologize honestly, Akaashi will forgive you.”

Bokuto sniffled and looked up at him, “you really think so?”

“I know so,” Kuroo stated even though he didn’t know.

-~- 

Bokuto left dozens, if not hundreds of text messages and voice mails on Akaashi’s phone, he knew that Akaashi had to at least read or listen to some of them.

 

“ _Akaashi, I’m sorry for what I said, I didn’t mean it that way, I… I don’t know how to explain to you, but we are friends. I treated you badly, I shouldn’t have done that I was just… no I won’t make any excuses. I’m sorry I’m such an awful friend.”_

**To: Akaashi Keiji**

**From: Bokuto Koutaro**

**Akaashi please call me, I’m sorry.**

_“It’s me again. Please pick up the phone… Akaashi, please… please, I don’t know how to fix this, but I want to.”_

**To: Akaashi Keiji**

**From: Bokuto Koutaro**

**Please pick up, I want to fix this.**

_“Hi again, Akaashi, I’m sorry I’m being so… annoying… and persistent. But would you please call me? Please pick up your phone.”_

**To: Akaashi Keiji**

**From: Bokuto Koutaro**

**Akaashi, I know what I did was a terrible thing to do as a friend. I want to be your friend, I didn’t want this to happen, I didn’t mean to upset or insult you. Sorry, I know I’m annoying.**

_“Answering machine again… Look, Akaashi, I know you must hear some of these messages, I know I’m loud enough. Akaashi… I… I don’t know what to do. You probably think I hate you and then we’re back to being eight and nine… I don’t want that. I don’t hate you. I don’t… Ah… but you probably hate me… no, I know you hate me, but please at least let me tell you I’m sorry.”_

**To: Akaashi Keiji**

**From: Bokuto Koutaro**

**I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being so annoying too.**

Yes, Bokuto had sent many more than that, at one point he had sent so many voice mails that the answering machine blatantly refused to allow him to leave more. Bokuto didn’t know what to do. It was well into October now, the leaves on the trees dying along with Bokuto’s hope of ever speaking to Akaashi again. Like a coward, Bokuto hid behind the screen of his phone, refusing to come out to Family gatherings, something his father understood, but was not happy about.

According to Kuroo, Akaashi had been absent from most gatherings too as he never came to the Bokuto estate and rarely left his room when gatherings were held on his Family’s property. Most members of the Akaashi Family assured Kuroo that this was a common thing for Akaashi, being recluse that was. Akaashi probably couldn’t stand to see Bokuto’s face, after all he did throw Akaashi’s dreams into the dirt, how mature of him.

Bokuto was never good with words, and he only had a few to use to apologize to Akaashi. They were always the same words, just repeated, and honestly Bokuto couldn’t blame Akaashi for not listening to his messages.

All Bokuto had to say was, “I’m sorry, I was a jerk, I’m annoying, this is my fault, I want to be friends, I don’t want to go back to how we were before we were friends,” and lastly, “I know that you hate me, but please, I don’t want that, anything but that.”

Bokuto had meant all of those words, every single one, sincerely. However, having so few to say made Bokuto feel shallow. Kuroo had told him that it was probably just guilt and not to worry about feeling shallow, but Bokuto couldn’t help it. All he had been doing was talking about himself, how _he_ was sorry, how _he_ was annoying, how _he_ fucked up. He felt like dying.

Bokuto sat up from the mess he was on his bed, an epiphany arising. If he told Akaashi what he meant to him, not tell him that he loved him more than stars loved the night sky or more than the moon loved to pull the tides of the ocean, but tell him what he meant to him on a fundamental level, as a friend, as someone he needed.

Bokuto pulled out his phone and feverishly dialed Akaashi’s number, and to his luck, the answering machine wasn’t full anymore, “Akaashi, I know you may still be mad, but I want you to hear me out,” he started, taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly, “Akaashi, please, please come to the stone bridge in the next hour, if you’re not there I’ll wait for you. Please come and I promise I’ll never annoy you ever again.”

-~- 

Bokuto ran to the bridge as fast as he could, not even bothering to fix his hair into its usual spiked up monstrosity or put on clothes that matched. A florescent green top that had a picture of a dog with laser eyes on it, orange pyjama pants with owl caricatures, and a blue fleece-lined wind breaker, did not, in any sense, award Bokuto the term “fashion icon,” but he didn’t care as long as Akaashi came.

Bokuto sat in the same place he had been crying weeks ago. While the memory resurfaced itself in his mind, like a song on repeat, he didn’t cry this time. He just waited. Bokuto watched as the hours passed, sun eventually winking goodnight to the horizon behind him before the sky turned from orange, to red, to pink, to navy. He always liked the colour navy, though Bokuto had always liked a lot of colours. The white lights of stars and the crescent moon beamed their light down to where Bokuto sat, illuminating the bridge in an almost romantic way, like a fairy tale setting just waiting for its final miracle to arise in the very spot he was.

The night was cold, but it was bearable, and Bokuto was smart enough to bring his jacket too. Bokuto watched the stars all night, not sleeping, just waiting. Eventually, in front of his very eyes, dawn broke. The sky burst into soft, warm, colours with the rising sun, marred only by scattered clouds that Bokuto felt added to the scene even more.

Bokuto sighed, he had been out all night and Akaashi didn’t come, maybe he didn’t even get his message. He looked to the sky and thought about the old saying about how a red sky at morning meant that the angels were taking warning, or was it sailors? Bokuto didn’t know, but he liked angels better, they reminded him of Akaashi.

Splatters of water fell onto Bokuto’s shoulders, wetting his hair. The rain was dyed red within the light of dawn, it was a sun shower, but it made Bokuto no happier than if it were a thunderstorm and he were to be stuck in the middle of it. Suddenly the rain stopped falling on his shoulders and a shadow embraced him.   

“Did you spend all night out here waiting for me?”

There, standing by his side in the rain, was Akaashi. Bokuto’s heart pounded because, wow, god was Akaashi ever beautiful when he looked down onto Bokuto with his dark, unassuming eyes, brows creased with worry.

Rain fell upon Akaashi’s head as Bokuto looked up at him, jaw loose and eyes wide.

“A… kaa… shi…” he managed to whisper.

Akaashi sighed and sat down next to Bokuto, propping up the umbrella up on the bridge wall so they could both be under it, shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg.

“I didn’t think you’d wait all night for me,” Akaashi started, “but then I figured you might just be stupid enough to do that,” he explained, “so I came.”

“Akaashi,” Bokuto said again, more confidently this time as he held out his hand for Akaashi, he took it, “I… don’t know how to start.”

Akaashi squeezed Bokuto’s hand, most likely to coax Bokuto into talking, “I’ll listen.”

Bokuto released the breath he was holding, “I wanna start with that I’m sorry, but you’ve heard it already,” Akaashi nodded, “I… when I was apologizing all those times, I didn’t even acknowledge you in those. I hurt you… and I didn’t take how you felt into account because I’m just some annoying muscle-headed _idiot_ that—”

“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said, cutting him off, “slower,” he commanded.

Bokuto heeded his words and nodded slowly, “I was being selfish because I didn’t want you to leave, because you… you mean a lot to me… and I really want to stay friends with you, if you want that too, I won’t… I won’t make you be my friend. I just… I don’t know how to… to…”

“Express how you feel?” Akaashi provided.

Bokuto nodded, “express how I feel. That’s… why I act out. Kuroo told me that.”

“Kuroo-san is very smart.”

“Akaashi I…” Bokuto began urgently, “I need you, I need you like a… like…”

“Like fish need water?”

“Yes!” Bokuto exclaimed as he threw his arms up, letting go of Akaashi’s hand and jostling the umbrella slightly, “you’re so smart, Akaashi,” he sighed, “if… if you really want to go to those American schools… I won’t get in your way anymore.”

It was silent, Akaashi didn’t speak, and Bokuto didn’t want to break the silence. In the quiet, the two of them watched as the rain halted from its pouring and shifted to a drizzle, and then it stopped. It was still dawn, but only slightly. The full, round, shape of the sun was nearly over the horizon, but the sky was still as pink as Bokuto’s face currently was.

Finally, Akaashi broke the silence, “I failed my test for Caltech,” he said simply.

“You—”

“I failed,” he said again, “I think I’m too young to go to university anyways.”

“I’m—”

“Don’t be sorry. You didn’t make me fail, in anything I tried harder just out of spite.”

Bokuto laughed awkwardly, “I don’t know how to take that.”

Akaashi shrugged, “however, I guess.” Akaashi stood up and closed the umbrella before holding his hand out to Bokuto to help him up, “I’ll walk you home.”

Bokuto took Akaashi’s hand and stood next to him, “thanks.”

“Um, Bokuto-san?” Bokuto hummed, “what are you wearing?” Akaashi asked in disgust.

“Rude! These are my pyjamas!” Bokuto exclaimed a little too proudly.

Akaashi sighed and the two of them fell into a steady conversation. When they were about halfway to Bokuto’s house, Akaashi suddenly changed the flow of the conversation.

“By the way, Bokuto-san,”

“Yeah?”

“I know Kuroo-san edited all of your text messages.”   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I am very sorry for this super delayed update to my cliff hanger, school is so busy lately because I'm at the end of my term...  
> Any how, I really hope you enjoy this update I poured my sweat and literal tears into okay thank you.


	11. In Sickness and Health (Annoying)

Akaashi wasn’t sure what to do, it had been a two days since he had forgiven Bokuto for what he did that day at the bridge, but his friend seemed to still be on edge. Sure it hadn’t been long, but Bokuto always seemed to have a special skill for bouncing back, sort of like a rubber band.

“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi called for the third time.

“Huh?” Bokuto poked his head up from the television screen and turned back to Akaashi, “Sorry, Akaashi, did you ask something?”

Akaashi sighed, “I asked why you were so tense.”

“Tense?” He asked as if he were testing out the word.

Akaashi nodded, “you’re usually more… well, more.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Akaashi!”

“I mean you’re usually more in my face, or loud, but you haven’t been lately.”

It’s not that he’s complaining, Akaashi reasoned to himself, of course he thinks it’s nice that Bokuto is being more respectful towards him, he liked it even, but Akaashi really didn’t mind it much when Bokuto was loud and in his face either. Having Bokuto in his face 24/7 just seemed to be a given and no matter how grateful Akaashi was for the newfound personal space between them, he felt awkward when it wasn’t happening. It felt to Akaashi like something was wrong with Bokuto, either that or Bokuto had found something wrong with Akaashi, which was a whole different can of worries.

Bokuto scratched the back of his head, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” he said, and Akaashi can tell immediately that he’s lying.

“Bokuto-san, I know you’re lying,” Akaashi said, calling him out, “we… we’re friends right? You can tell me.”

It felt odd to be calling Bokuto his friend, not that they weren’t, just that the last time he even remotely brought up the question of them being friends, Akaashi had been yelling at Bokuto saying they weren’t. It wasn’t exactly a _pretty_ memory.

Bokuto seemed to debate Akaashi’s words in his head for a moment before he sighed and flopped down onto his bed. He and Akaashi had been playing video games on Bokuto’s PS4 for the past three hours. Akaashi spared a glance to Bokuto’s hand and it’s healed scars. He knew full well that they were from when he fell _that_ day and he immediately felt guilty for it.

After what felt like a half hour of silence, Bokuto turned to face Akaashi, “Akaashi, am I annoying?” he asked.

Akaashi gave a look that said _“are you being serious right now?”_ before he stood up from Bokuto’s bean bag chair and sat down on the bed next to his friend.

“Bokuto-san, I don’t think you’re annoying,” he said frankly.

Bokuto groaned and sat up, “Akaaaaashi! I’m serious!” he frowned and began to twiddle his thumbs, “you’ve… well, everyone really, calls me annoying, so…”

Akaashi sighed, but not in a malicious way, and put his hand on Bokuto’s shoulder gently in an attempt to be more sincere, something Akaashi wasn’t ever very good at, “Bokuto-san, I really don’t think you’re annoying,” he paused to correct himself, “sometimes you do things that are a little annoying, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” he explained.

“You don’t?” Bokuto asked, eyes staring directly into Akaashi’s.

Akaashi shook his head, but was too caught up in Bokuto’s gaze to break the eye contact they shared, “I don’t, it makes you who you are.”

“And… that’s not bad?”

“It’s not bad,” Akaashi states matter-of-factly.

“Not… bad…” Bokuto whispered, leaning closer to Akaashi.

Akaashi locked eyes with Bokuto, he was lost in the way Bokuto was looking into Akaashi’s eyes with his impossibly golden ones. They were pleading, pleading for something that Akaashi couldn’t make heads or tales of.

Akaashi opened his mouth to say something, wanting to break the silence, but before he could get a single word out, Bokuto sneezed, and because of the proximity, he sneezed directly into Akaashi’s open mouth.

For about a minute, the two just sat there and stared at each other, Akaashi with his mouth open and brow furrowed in agitation, and Bokuto with snot running out of his nose. Bokuto quickly wiped his nose on his sleeve, sniffled, and was about to stutter out an apology, but Akaashi was already pulling onto Bokuto’s shirt. He was stunned as Akaashi pulled up Bokuto’s shirt to his mouth, wiping it clean with the fabric. When Akaashi looked up, he glared at Bokuto with dark eyes.

“Bokuto-san.”

“Yes!” Bokuto squeaked out, leaning away from Akaashi, a difficult thing as Akaashi was gripping his shirt like a vice.

Akaashi pulled his face closer, “were you never taught to cover your nose when you sneeze? If you needed to blow your nose you should have said so.”

Bokuto smiled awkwardly and put his hands up in defence, “I-I was distracted! I would have done it!”

“Distracted by what?” Akaashi asked darkly.

“W-well… y—”

“The fact you’re sick and can’t pay attention to anything?” Akaashi asked, cutting him off as he let go of Bokuto’s shirt, which was now stretched awkwardly, “You know, you’re sick because you stayed out in the rain all night, right?”

Bokuto crossed his arms, “I’m not sick,” he protested, only to sneeze again, this time he was able to effectively cover it in time.

Akaashi stood up and pointed to the bed, “lay down,” he commanded.

Bokuto complied, “Akaashi, I—”

“Get under the covers and stay there, I’ll be right back.”

Without listening to another protest from Bokuto, Akaashi stalked out of the room, wiping his mouth on his arm again for good measure when Bokuto couldn’t see him anymore. Akaashi walked down to he kitchen to find Kuroo there with Lev.

“Oh, Akaashi! Speak of the devil,” Kuroo exclaimed with a wide gesture, “we were just talking about you.”

Akaashi’s gaze shifted uneasily between Kuroo and Lev. He wasn’t too concerned about what Lev might say about him behind his back, but Kuroo, well, Kuroo was nice but as Bokuto’s best friend he was another story.

“Ah,” Lev voiced, “Akaashi, you have a good eye,” he started and Akaashi looked at him curiously, “do you think this bracelet goes with this necklace?” he asked, gesturing to his accessories, “Oikawa-san said they don’t go together well.”

Without skipping a beat, Akaashi replied, “did you steal those?”

“Rude!” Lev exclaimed, “I only stole the bracelet this time, I paid for the necklace.”

“You paid with fake money,” Kuroo said frankly.

Akaashi fixes Lev a look of parental disapproval, “If you get arrested again I’m not helping you out… Also Oikawa-san is right, you shouldn’t put gold and silver together like that.”

“Told you so,” Kuroo said to Lev, who was pouting.

“You didn’t help last time, last time it was Yaku-san,” Lev muttered.

Akaashi cleared his throat to get their attention again, “do you have any soup?”

“Soup?” Kuroo asked, “you’d have to make it yourself, the head chef is on vacation today so we told the kitchen staff to all take the day off as well.”

“How productive,” Akaashi said with a roll of his eyes, “that’s fine, I know how to cook.”

“Why do you want soup anyways?” Lev asked.

“Why were you both talking about me?” Akaashi shot back. He sighed, “Bokuto is sick.”

“Oho? How did you find out?” Kuroo inquired, taking a sip from the water he was drinking.

Akaashi rolled his eyes, “so you knew? I’m guessing he told you not to say anything?” Kuroo nodded, “he sneezed directly into my mouth,” Akaashi said bitterly.

Kuroo spat out the water in his mouth and began hacking a lung out in laughter. Lev laughed too, but he hid it behind his hand with his eyes shut and his arm over his gut as he doubled over. Akaashi stood there and waited for them to stop, tapping his foot impatiently with his arms crossed.

When Kuroo settled down he spoke, “Oh, and Akaashi, about the soup,”

“Yes, what about it, Pain-In-The-Ass-Kuroo-san?”

“What?”

“I said, yes, Kuroo-san?” Akaashi smirked slightly.

Kuroo sighed, “I was going to say we can help you with the soup,” Akaashi looked at him questionably, “don’t make that face.”

-~- 

After about a half an hour of making an excessive amount of soup with Lev and Kuroo, Akaashi was finally able to escape back to Bokuto’s room with his coveted soup-prize. Akaashi was surprised when he opened the door to find a pouting Bokuto still in bed and under the covers, albeit with his arms crossed in some kind of childish rebellion.

As soon as Akaashi had closed the door, Bokuto wiped his head into the direction of the sound, “Akaashi!” he exclaimed dramatically, arms unlocking from their crossed position, “what took you so long?”

Akaashi held up the tray he was holding so that Bokuto could see it better, “soup, because you’re sick.”

“Am not,” Bokuto pouted.

Akaashi sighed, something that was becoming a staple of his as of late, and walked over to Bokuto’s bedside before placing the tray on his lap, “here,” he said.

“You made this for me?” Bokuto asked as he pointed at the soup in front of him.

Akaashi nods, “Kuroo-san and Lev helped out.”

“What were they doing in the kitchen?” Bokuto asked, more to himself than Akaashi.

Akaashi shrugged and sat on the edge of the bed, facing the window, “they were talking about me, evidently, though about what, I don’t know.” Akaashi turns back to look at Bokuto, who was beat red as he ate his soup, “see? I told you you were sick; your face is so red.”

Bokuto sputters, but his wild motion, as wild as it can be with a tray of soup in his lap, quickly comes to a stop as Akaashi placed his large hand onto his forehead. Akaashi hoped that Bokuto didn’t have a serious fever, though considering how much gel was in Bokuto’s hair, he couldn’t be that sick.

“Akaa… shi?”

“Shh,” Akaashi said, “I’m trying to take your temperature…” he explained, though the noise didn’t really effect how well Akaashi could take Bokuto’s temperature, “you do feel warm, though you’re like a child so I’d expect you to have the body heat of one too.”

“Rude!” Bokuto exclaimed.

After another moment Akaashi removed his hand and stood up from the bed after realizing he may have lingered just a little too long with his touch as his heart was beating a little faster and a lot more irregularly than usual. Akaashi’s pounding heart reminds him on the time at the Grand Onyx when Bokuto fell on his face and got a nosebleed and he had to check to make sure it wasn’t broken. If he recalled correctly, Bokuto had stopped breathing and they locked eyes. An image of himself moving closer to Bokuto flits across Akaashi’s mind, which normally wouldn’t be of consequence if it weren’t for the new context his brain was attaching to it.

Akaashi shook his head and pressed his thumb into the palm of his hand.

“You okay Akaashi?” Bokuto asked suddenly.

Akaashi spun around, “why wouldn’t I be? I’m not the sick one here.”

“You’re doing that thing with your hands,” Bokuto stated.

Akaashi looked down at his thumb in his palm and quickly moved his hands behind his body, out of Bokuto’s field of view, “so?” he asked.

“You do that a lot,” Bokuto explained, “like when you over think or get nervous and stuff.”

“I- no I don’t,” Akaashi sputtered, unhooking his hands and placing them firmly on his hips in a defiant manner.

Bokuto looks down at his soup, “is it because of school? I... I know how much you wanted to go.”

Akaashi quickly shook his head; he knew this was a sour subject for Bokuto if what happened it the bridge was anything to go by. After he had thought about it, in excess as he usually does, he realized Bokuto’s point of view, a childish point of view from Akaashi’s perspective, but at least an understandable one.

Not wanting to bring up school or the real reason he had being doing _that thing with his hands_ as Bokuto had put it, Akaashi elected for something else, “I never apologized for punching you,” he said.

Bokuto is taken off guard and Akaashi considers it a win on his part, “you don’t need to,” Bokuto said quietly.

“No, punching you was too much, and you even have scars from falling on the gravel,” Akaashi said, gesturing to Bokuto’s hand.

Bokuto looked at the scars, flexing his hand a little, “I think that’s okay.”

“Isn’t it a bad memory though?”

Bokuto shook his head, “I think bad memories can be good too, I guess, I mean, I did learn stuff from it, after all.”

Akaashi looked at Bokuto, confused by his wisdom, especially since it was coupled with less than equal eloquence.

“What did you learn?”

Bokuto laughed awkwardly and scratched the back of his head, “well I learned I shouldn’t let my anger get the better of me… I also learned that you have a great right hook!” he beamed, “have you been doing extra push ups?”

“Weight lifting,” Akaashi said incredulously.

Bokuto nodded his approval, “very nice, I have trained you well.”

Akaashi shook his head, “how are you older than me?”

“Easy! I was born a year before you.”

Akaashi groaned, “that was rhetorical… I’m going home now, you need to rest,” before Bokuto can protest, Akaashi speaks again, “eat your soup and I’ll come back tomorrow, but you have to eat that.”

With newfound acceptance, Bokuto nods, his all too familiar broad grin lighting up his face and making Akaashi feel warm inside all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I update slow, I'm terrible! However, thank you for reading regardless!


	12. Sickness and Health

Exasperated. That was a good word to describe exactly how Akaashi felt. He felt _exasperated_ , somewhere far enough beyond simply annoyed for him to simply not care anymore. Why? Because Bokuto had invited him over when he was sick, and while Akaashi’s immune system was pristine, when a sick person sneezes directly into your mouth, it’s grounds for some kind of illness to crop up eventually, he just didn’t expect it to be the very next day when he woke up.

It had been a very long time since Akaashi had last been sick, if he remembers right the last time was when he was around ten years old. He recalled the memory fondly and with clarity, well, as much as he had being sick and all. Both his mother and his father had made food together and brought it to him in bed. While his father had gone back to work, his mother had read him all the stories he’d asked for, wiped the sweat from his head, and sung him to sleep. Other members of the family had visited him as well, however he had been asleep, so he didn’t know who specifically. Akaashi had heard many times that he got sick a lot as a little kid from around ages one to four, so it had been a big deal six years later when he got sick again.

This time however, it wasn’t that big a deal, he was old enough to take care of himself, more or less. Also this time his mother wasn’t there to read him stories or do “motherly” things since she had been living in Italy to expand their business. She had moved there when Akaashi was about thirteen, he remembered crying, thinking that she was divorcing his dad, but she assured him that wasn’t true. She had pulled him into a gentle, yet tight, hug, patted his head, and said she would visit once a year. Of course she hadn’t kept that promise, it never really was a promise after all. She had only visited once in the three years she had been gone, and Akaashi had barely gotten to see her.

Akaashi didn’t mind that anymore, he still talked to her on the phone sometimes, which was more than what some members of his Family had, who only had fathers or had neither. Most of the time, those with only fathers rarely got to see them because their dads worked for the Family, just as they all would at age twenty. There were exceptions, there always were of course, like Tsukishima, who only had his mother and she worked in the kitchen with the other women in the Family, save for Akaashi’s own mother. Mafia Families were odd that way, not everyone was related, but everyone was _Family_ and that was what mattered.

Sometimes, and this has only happened with a few people, members of the Family would get together, but that was just life. Akaashi remembered a time when Yahaba used to flirt with Yachi, but he flirted with Kyoutani all the same. In the end of that, Akaashi learned that Yahaba was only trying to be a wing man for Watari and Yachi, when neither needed or even wanted it. Kyoutani had looked angrily relieved when he found out that Yahaba wasn’t interested in Yachi, Akaashi was happy for them.

Konoha often flirted with Yachi, Kaori, Akane, and the other girls; however, to Akaashi it looked more like friendliness, Konoha always got along better with girls anyway. Besides, if it had been anyone besides Konoha flirting with Akane, Taketora would have been pissed at them for flirting with his little sister and probably would have punched them in the jaw. Akaashi laughed at that thought. Whenever he decided to go to university he would miss his Family.

 Be it sickness or sentimentality for recent events, Akaashi decided he would miss Bokuto too, it would be odd to not have his loudmouthed friend around him. Despite his flaws, Bokuto was a genuine person, not to mention smart. Though, Bokuto was smart in that “obviously-this-is-the-answer” childlike way. Akaashi deemed it the “Idiot-mentality.”

Nervous? Got stage fright? Just save it for after you’re done.

Akaashi admired that kind of “straight is the fastest way to get there even if it’s the hardest way” ideology that Bokuto had. On some level Akaashi wished he could have a little bit of it too. It would be helpful to find the easiest answer quicker.

If someone had told Akaashi that he would admire and genuinely enjoy being around Bokuto Koutaro back in August, he would have laughed and asked if that person needed a psychiatrist. Now? Now he did admire Bokuto.

He liked the way Bokuto’s eyes were always focused on the thing in front of him, he liked it more when that thing was him, but he wasn’t going to admit that out loud. He liked the way Bokuto acknowledged his flaws and constantly tried to work on them. He liked Bokuto’s never give up attitude, the spring Bokuto would get in his step whenever Akaashi lifted his sour moods, the way he always tried his absolute _best_ to fix things. He liked how Bokuto was a little taller and how his hands were big, even if Akaashi’s were bigger. Ridiculous as it was, Akaashi liked Bokuto’s hair too, all spiked up and dyed silver with his black roots growing in so unevenly it had to have been done like that on purpose. He sort of looked like an owl, which made Akaashi laugh. He like Bokuto’s laugh too, and the way he smiled, especially when it was a smile he’d fashioned especially for Akaashi. It was all very Bokuto.

It was just Bokuto.

Bokuto.

… Bokuto…

Akaashi sat up, startled with the realization he had promised to go visit Bokuto today. Akaashi clutched his head as the room spun, he had sat up too quickly for his own good.

Fumbling a little, Akaashi reached for his phone on his dresser, the face of it reading 1:37 P.M. Akaashi groaned and regarded the three missed calls and twenty texts left on his phone fleetingly as he opened the calling history and pressed Bokuto’s number.

The phone barely rang once before it was picked up with a lot of rustling coming from the other end, “Akaashi! I thought you we’re coming over!” Bokuto whined.

Akaashi thought about rolling his eyes, but his illness wouldn’t permit it to him, “I never said when, also I can’t.”

“Why?” Bokuto said dejectedly.

Akaashi, helpfully or unhelpfully, coughed into the receiver, “you got me sick.”

“WHAT!” Bokuto wailed, “I got better while you got sick!”

“It’s alright Bokuto,” Akaashi assured him, though Bokuto hadn’t apologized, Akaashi knew that’s what he meant, “I’ll come by when I’m better, we can spar,” he said with a hoarse voice.

“Akaashi…”

“I’ll text you when I’m better, see you, Bokuto,” Akaashi said, putting the phone down.

Akaashi turned back around and eyed his pillows. Sure, as a sick person he should be getting soup, water, and medicine, but his fluffy pillows in their grey cases were all to inviting. They were, at least, more inviting than the prospect of eating something he may potentially throw up later. Akaashi didn’t feel nauseous per say, but the idea of food made his stomach quiver unpleasantly enough to warrant foregoing it for at least a few more hours. Without another second thought to his actions Akaashi laid back down, eyes shutting and mind slipping unconscious nearly instantaneously.  

-~- 

Soothing, that was what Akaashi could use to describe the feeling he felt when he was at the edge between conscious and unconscious. A warm, firm hand was playing with his hair, running his fingers through it like his mom used to. Briefly, Akaashi thought that it _was_ his mom, it would be so like her to come back from Italy because he got sick for the first time in years. Akaashi wanted to laugh at that, but he wasn’t conscious enough to complete the action, and the hand in his hair was doing that no favours. Akaashi knew it wasn’t his mother’s hand though, his mothers’ hands were more delicate, smaller too.

Maybe it was his father, that was always possible. Akaashi didn’t know if his dad had work to do today, or rather, he always had work so Akaashi wasn’t sure if he had less work today than usual. His dad was gentle like the hand in his hair was, firm too, also large. When Akaashi listened, he noted that the person who had their hand in his hair had steady breathing, while his father, even when he tried to be quiet, always made a slight whistling noise when he exhaled, this person didn’t.

If it wasn’t his father than maybe a member of his Family? Akaashi didn’t think so. If it was anyone, it would be one of the girls, which it was not since their hands were all too small, Ennoshita, who he rarely spoke with but they cared deeply about each other like Family, or Kyoutani, but Kyoutani likely wouldn’t be petting his head as Yahaba is the only one he’d do that for (not that Yahaba knew of course, Akaashi had promised to keep that a secret when he caught Kyoutani running his fingers through Yahaba’s hair while the boy was asleep). Unfortunately, or fortunately (Akaashi wasn’t sure), his body still wasn’t ready to move yet, so his eyes begged to remain shut.

Akaashi used it as an excuse to let the mystery person keep petting his head, it was a warm feeling in that sort of domestic way that Akaashi always dreamed of getting but never got much of while growing up in a Mafia Family. It was a shame really, Akaashi had missed out on so much. He missed out on public school, making friends from families that weren’t _Families_. He’d missed out on class fieldtrips and overnight school-funded expeditions to Kyoto and trying to get just _one_ native to talk to so he could hear that classic Osaka accent in real life instead of on T.V. He’d missed out on empty-classroom, back-of-the-school, rooftop confession scenes he’d only ever seen through a screen or a page. Akaashi had missed out on staying out until night hours turned into the earliest morning hours and getting scolded for staying out too late. He never got that because too many smaller gangs and Mafia Families would hold him for ransom if he were caught outside during an unsightly hour of the night. He missed out on summer festivals and fireworks displays organized by the city. He’d never had takoyaki, soba, or choco-bananas at a festival, and he’d certainly never had cotton candy to share with a close friend or even with someone he loved.

True, it was debatable upon which of these things he would actually get to do. They were the things of fantasy, most of which were increasingly unlikely due to the fact of Akaashi’s personality more than anything else. Akaashi couldn’t picture himself confessing to anyone, nor could he picture getting confessed _to_ ; though the former seemed more likely, it would also likely end in rejection. Akaashi wouldn’t stay out during all hours of the night because he didn’t want to get scolded, and in reality he didn’t see the allure. They were just fantasies, and Akaashi knew where the line between them and his reality met, and he knew he couldn’t cross it.

The person with their hand in Akaashi’s hair slid it down to his cheek, stroking his cheekbone with their thumb.

 _I hope I don’t have a zit_ , Akaashi thought briefly before it switched to, _I hope this is a real person and not just my illness making things up._ That would have been nice, knowing someone liked him enough to sit at his bedside, conscious or not, for an indefinite amount of time, that someone loved him like that. The thought made his heart swell with something akin to pride.

Finally, Akaashi was able to wiggle his toes, a sign his body was ready to wake up. Clearly, his stomach was ahead of him, groaning in a demand for food.

“Ah!” the person exclaimed, a man, Akaashi noted, “stay right there, Akaashi, I’ll go get you some food!”

 _Ah_ , Akaashi thought, it was Bokuto. Of course it was, Bokuto was the only person who knew he got sick after all, especially since he hadn’t left his room at all in favour of sleeping. Also Bokuto was probably the only person he knew that would tell someone who’s sleeping to “stay right there.” Akaashi’s eyes snapped open and he could feel himself blushing if the heat that radiated of his face was anything to go by. He still felt groggy and hoarse, and his nose was clogged (luckily not runny), but the reality of what Bokuto had been doing was finally sinking in.

He had been taking care of Akaashi, he had run his fingers through his hair like his mother did, he stoked Akaashi’s cheek with his thumb gently, _lovingly_. Akaashi let his hand rocket up to the side of his face where Bokuto had touched it, luckily there weren’t any zits but there _was_ an overlaying feeling of… shyness? Embarrassment? Whatever it was it made Akaashi flustered, heart pounding and red-faced, thankful he could use sickness as an excuse if Bokuto saw him while he was the colour of an apple.

Akaashi’s head pounded and he held it in one hand and groaned (the fact the ground sounded like it came out of a portable speaker with a dying battery was the least of his current worries).

He didn’t even know Bokuto had re-entered the room until he said, “sorry, did I wake you?”

“No,” Akaashi said, shaking his head only to regret the action, _I’ve been awake for a while though,_ he thought but didn’t want Bokuto to know that he knew what Bokuto did while he was asleep.

“Here!” Bokuto said a little too loudly, holding out a tray with a bowl on it, “I made soup before I came over, I just re-heated it for you,” he explained, putting the tray down on Akaashi’s lap. Bokuto twiddled his thumbs in a nervous fashion, “it’s cauliflower soup, I hope that’s okay, we didn’t have any noodles at home.”

Akaashi smiled fondly down at the soup, “it’s perfect,” he said, because it was, “thank you, Bokuto-san.”

Bokuto blushed and it made Akaashi’s heart race and momentarily he thought he had hallucinated it, but another glance at his friend told him he hadn’t. Akaashi had to wonder what possible reason Bokuto could have for that. He didn’t seem to get embarrassed as easily as that, so maybe he was feeling the same type of pride in his soup that Akaashi had in being loved by someone.

“Ah, uh, do you need anything else?” Bokuto asked, a little rushed.

Akaashi shook his head, “no it’s—” Akaashi cut himself off with his own coughing fit.

Bokuto immediately jumped up and moved the soup out of the way so it wouldn’t spill before he sat on the edge of the bed next to Akaashi, patting his back firmly and gently. When Akaashi’s coughing fit finally subsided, Bokuto’s hand remained there on his back, radiating heat and Akaashi sure hoped that Bokuto couldn’t feel his rising heart rate.

“I brought medicine, do you want to take some?”

Akaashi shook his head gently, “I think I’ll be okay with some rest.”

He saw Bokuto nod in his peripheral vision, “sorry I got you sick…”

Akaashi made a non-committal gesture, “it’s okay, Bokuto-san.”

Akaashi’s voice was hoarse, though it was definitely not enough to cut the tension he felt sitting between Bokuto and himself. Quiet conversations and silence were just not Bokuto’s thing and now that Akaashi was used to his loud friends parading around him all the time silence like this was bizarre to say the least. Though he was grateful for it since he had a headache, Akaashi felt like the headache would be a little more bearable with Bokuto complaining about something, or begging for something, or suggesting _something_. Anything, just anything would be better.

Regrettably, Bokuto moved his hand from Akaashi’s back, making the spot it was feel far colder in comparison to any other part of his body. Bokuto reached for the food tray and pulled it back to Akaashi.

“Here, I didn’t want you to spill it,” he said.

Akaashi smiled and grabbed the spoon, taking a large bite of the soup. The first thing Akaashi thought was that, _yes, yes it is cauliflower soup,_ the second was, _barely, it’s barely cauliflower soup._ The soup wasn’t bad, it just tasted worse than it looked, Akaashi reasoned. Akaashi looked at Bokuto who looked so nervous Akaashi thought he couldn’t get any paler unless he turned into a sheet of paper.

“It’s good,” he lied, taking another spoonful. The soup was bearable at best.

Bokuto let out a loud sigh of relief, making Akaashi realize just how nervous Bokuto actually was about whether or not Akaashi would like the food he made, “Thank god! Kuroo told me I suck at cooking!” He said at a normal _Bokuto_ volume.

 _Kuroo-san is right,_ Akaashi thought, and then said, “There’s room for everyone to improve.”

“So it is bad!” Bokuto exclaimed, “let me try some!”

“What?”

“I want to see how bad it is,” Bokuto explained in a whine.

“Bokuto-san, it’s fine—”

Bokuto put his hands on the tray, “Akaashi please! I don’t want to poison a sick person!”

Akaashi held the bowl a little closer, “Bokuto-san, really, it’s not that bad.”

Bokuto grabbed the bowl, “let me try, let me make sure!”

Bokuto pulled on the bowl, Akaashi pulled back. It was sort of childish but Akaashi, in retaliation (and partly because his limbs were too weak to keep up this game of tug-of-war), let go. Bokuto’s arms pulled back like a rubber band, causing soup to land all over him, bowl thunking down to the floor below with a loud clatter against the silence in the room.

“Pfft…”

Akaashi smiled, and then, unable to hold it back, started laughing so loud, he was sure that the whole house could hear him. He tried to cover his mouth and suppress it, but another glance at Bokuto, with soup all over his mismatching clothes and in his miraculously stiff spiked up hair (how much gel did he use anyways?), caused Akaashi to throw his head back and laugh harder as he clutched at his sides. Eventually, probably after being stunned by the soup, Bokuto started laughing too (which was more like howling, but Akaashi loved it nonetheless).

Maybe he should get sick more often.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I know this chapter is a little longer than usual, though I can't promise that to be a common theme, I hope it can be?


	13. Are You Drunk?

Akaashi was in a fix.

He wasn’t sure how it happened and he was certain no one but himself had noticed. It had been a while since Akaashi had made up with Bokuto, around a month and a half had passed if he went by the day he was sick. He wasn’t quite sure when it started. Maybe it was that day when Bokuto had fed him that awful cauliflower soup. Maybe it was on Halloween when Bokuto _insisted_ he could scale the house, despite the fact that the older members of his Family let him get alcohol into his system. Sufficed to say, he didn’t even put his hands on the side of the house before he slipped and fell right on top of Akaashi. Maybe it started far earlier, maybe it was the time at the Grand Onyx when he felt himself unconsciously lean closer to Bokuto. It was one of those things you just didn’t notice until you _really_ noticed. Usually by then it was too late to back out of it.

Yes, it certainly was a _fix_ , and Akaashi had never dealt with a problem quite like this before. He prided himself on being a level headed person. When he began to insult Bokuto more and not look him in the eyes as often (lest his heart beat unevenly), he didn’t know what to do. Akaashi felt like a grade schooler. Many of his Family members _had_ noticed actually, just not the right way. They had said things like “wow, Bokuto really pulled you out of your shell, huh?” or, “you two are so close now I hardly believe that you’re the same person, Akaashi.”

Frankly he was a little grateful. If any of his Family members realized he had a big, dumb crush on Bokuto, who was a big, dumb guy, he would die of embarrassment. Thankfully, Bokuto hadn’t noticed either. No one had noticed. At least, that’s what Akaashi thought until…

“Y’know, the sexual tension between you two is so thick I don’t even think a knife could cut it.”

Yes, that was Kuroo, the number two aggressor in the Lets-Prank-Akaashi tirades. Resident of the Bokuto Family household and, evidently, also a resident _pain-in-the-ass_. They were currently well into the festivities of a gathering at the Akaashi house. It was an early celebration for Akaashi’s birthday, which was the next day.

Akaashi turned back to face Kuroo after nearly dropping his hotdog, “what?” he asked incredulously.

Kuroo sighed, “you’ve been staring at Bokuto for the entire time I’ve been talking to you.”

Akaashi looked over to the other side of the courtyard to see Bokuto trying to get Tsukishima to do… something, he wasn’t sure what though. Akaashi looked back to Kuroo, “I haven’t,” he denied.

Kuroo laughed, “if you like him you should just tell him.”

“But I _don’t_ like him that way,” Akaashi lied. He indeed did like him _that way_.

Kuroo shrugged, “if you say so,” he said with a smirk before walking over to where Bokuto was.

Akaashi watched in turmoil as Kuroo slapped a friendly hand onto Bokuto’s shoulder as he glanced back his way. God he hoped Kuroo didn’t tell Bokuto anything unnecessary. Quickly, Akaashi turned away. If Bokuto were to see him staring at him in forlorn fashion he would want to crawl in a hole and never come out.

That being said, Akaashi was trying to practically shove his hotdog down his throat as a distraction when, “Akaaaaashi!” a joyous voice, Bokuto’s voice, rung out as he clapped his hand down onto Akaashi’s shoulder.

Akaashi gagged on his food, dropping some of it from his hands, while the rest fell unceremoniously from his mouth to the grass at his feet. Akaashi stood there in that position, mouth open and hands raised from trying to save his food, remnants of his hotdog all over his mouth. Akaashi whipped his head around and glared at Bokuto.

He immediately released Akaashi’s shoulder and raised his hands, “ah, my bad, Akaashi,” he said.

In a moment of either mindless retaliation or mindless pettiness (Akaashi wasn’t sure which), he wiped his mouth and looked at the mass amount of food residue (if it could be called that) before he wiped it down Bokuto’s cheek.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto screeched, hand rocketing up to his face to frantically wipe his cheek.

Akaashi suppressed his laughter with a convenient sigh and walked over to the food table to grab a cup of water. Apparently Bokuto had followed him because as soon as Akaashi reached the table he could see Bokuto scarfing down whatever meat he could find.

“Hey, Akaashi,” Bokuto said, grabbing Akaashi’s attention, “I got a question.”

“What’s the question Bokuto?” Akaashi asked lamely, taking a sip from his cup.

“How much do you like me?” Akaashi spat his water directly into Bokuto’s face and immediately coughed the rest into his elbow to try and clear out his waterlogged lungs.

“Agk!” Bokuto yelped, “you didn’t even let me finish!” he complained. He patted Akaashi on the back to help with his coughing.

“What?” Akaashi croaked out.

Bokuto took his hand off of Akaashi’s back and put it on his hip, “I wanted to ask you for a favor.”

“Whether I like you or not has nothing to do with that.”

Bokuto startles, “do you mean you don’t like me Akaashi?” he asked, worry creased in his brow.

Akaashi shook his head, “I never said that Bokuto-san… what’s the favor?”

“Oh, right! Of course,” he said, “I wanna go hiking!”

Akaashi looked at him, confused, “what does that have to do with how much I like you? Also, how is that a favor?”

Bokuto shrugged, “I was just checking,” he said like it was an after thought, “so will you go hiking with me?” he asked impatiently, moving his face closer to Akaashi’s. He smelled like…

“Bokuto are you drunk?”

Bokuto shook his head quickly, “I only had two drinks!”

“Drinks of what?” Akaashi asked. Most likely it was beer, the older Family members often tried to get Akaashi to drink some too.

Bokuto put a finger to his chin, “hmm, well, Kuroo handed me these pretty drinks, like with the umbrellas?” When Akaashi supplied him a look, Bokuto continued to explain, “it was fruity and there was like, sugar or something on the rim… you know, the pretty drinks!”

Akaashi, in distress that Bokuto had apparently been given _mixed_ drinks, which meant he was at least a hair past tipsy, he looked behind Bokuto to see Kuroo. He was smirking like the asshole Akaashi knew he was.

“Rather than hiking, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi started, “maybe you should get some water?”

Bokuto crossed his arms and pouted childishly, “I wanna walk with you,” he muttered.

Akaashi sighed and closed his eyes, “Bo— Geh!”

Before he could get the words out, Akaashi was being lifted off the ground and thrown over a shoulder, Bokuto’s shoulder. This was giving him awful Déjà-vu. Akaashi could definitely hear Kuroo laughing his ass off, even if he couldn’t see him because his face had been thrown over Bokuto’s shoulder and into his back.

“Bokuto-san, put me down!” Akaashi demanded, hitting his friends back.

“Nooooooooooo,” he whined, “I don’t wanna, I wanna walk with you.”

Akaashi stopped hitting Bokuto’s back, “if I promise to go with you will you put me down?”

“Do… do I have to?”

“Yes, put me down,” Akaashi replied nearly immediately.

Bokuto sighed and let Akaashi slip back down to his feet. However, Bokuto hadn’t actually let him go, so Akaashi was currently being held at the waist while his body was pressed up against Bokuto’s. Akaashi immediately swallowed down the initial wave of butterflies and warmth because when he looked up, Bokuto had some kind of conflicted expression on his face. It was sort of like the face he made when he couldn’t remember how to do a certain move, but it was different, entirely different.

“What?” Akaashi asked, thanking every God that could possibly exist that he hadn’t stuttered despite the increasing lack of oxygen in his lungs.

Bokuto didn’t say anything to answer Akaashi’s question. Instead, he just hummed, let Akaashi go, smiled broadly, and then said, “c’mon let’s go, Akaashi!”

-~- 

When Bokuto said hiking, he meant he had wanted to walk through the forest. There were no “hiking” trails nearby. Not official ones any ways. Bokuto kept rambling on about some job Kuroo went on and the trouble he almost got into, and Akaashi could practically see him get a little drunker with every step they took. At this rate, Bokuto would be at some kind of peak drunkenness very, very soon, if not right then. The only upside to that meant Bokuto would be sobering up right after that. The downsides… well, Akaashi didn’t know, he had never seen Bokuto drunk like this before. Akaashi just hoped that if Bokuto needed to vomit he would do it on the forest floor and not on Akaashi’s shoes.

Honestly, Akaashi wasn’t really listening, he was more focused on keeping pace with Bokuto, who may as well have been jogging with how big his strides were. At least Bokuto was happy, that’s all Akaashi wanted anyways.

All of a sudden Bokuto stopped on the path and walked towards a fallen tree that looked like it had been there for a very long time with how much moss was growing out of it.

“Do you need to sit down?” Akaashi asked, joining Bokuto over by the log.

Bokuto shook his head, “nah,” he said sloppily.

Akaashi sat down on the log, “do you need to throw up?”

“Nope,” he responded, taking a seat on the ground, leaning his back against the log.

“Why are we stopping then?”

“Nostalgia,” Bokuto answered quickly, “I used to come here all the time.”

“I see,” Akaashi said, though he wasn’t sure where Bokuto was headed with this.

As expected, Bokuto continues his explanation about the log, “the first time I came here I was here for hours, I was really upset and Kuroo eventually found me, my dad was really mad.” Akaashi nodded, Bokuto was probably crying that time even if he didn’t say as much. Bokuto was very open, but he was also very prideful just like anyone else in his Family. “I don’t think I’ve been here since I was maybe fourteen, or thirteen… don’t really remember.”

Akaashi wondered briefly why Bokuto was telling him this. It seemed like Bokuto’s regular rambling, though it also appeared to have a purpose, one that Akaashi couldn’t see yet. For now, this was just, at most, the rambling of a drunk person.

“Though,” Bokuto said a little louder, “this is the first time I’m happy to be here! And, Akaashi, you’re here, so it’s even better!” He said, turning around to look up at Akaashi with _that stupid grin_ that always made Akaashi’s heart beat skip.

“Ah,” he voiced, “well I’m glad to be here with you,” Akaashi said, a little flustered but otherwise thankful that it was nearing dusk so Bokuto couldn’t see his face as well as he would have during midday.

A sudden force yanked Akaashi from his seat on the log down to the ground. Bokuto’s hands were gripping his legs and pulling Akaashi over top of Bokuto. While Akaashi lamented silently over his hurting tailbone, the more pressing matter of Bokuto squeezing Akaashi in his… undeniably muscular arms was what really grabbed his attention.

“Akaaaashiii, I’m so glad you like me!” Bokuto cried, practically rubbing his cheek in Akaashi’s hair.

“Wh—”

“I thought you hated me forever, I always wanted to be close with you!”

Akaashi took a deep breath before speaking, he would be composed, _he should be composed_ and honestly he really _should_ be annoyed too, but he wasn’t, “then you shouldn’t have played so many pranks,” Akaashi had meant to sound angry, but his voice was less than convincing with how weak it sounded. Really, who could blame him?

“I’m sorry…” Bokuto said. Bokuto loosened his grip, but didn’t let go.

Bokuto readjusted Akaashi into a more comfortable position on his lap before resting his chin on Akaashi’s shoulder and resting Akaashi’s back against his chest. Akaashi could feel every puff of breath that came out of his mouth right on his neck. For the second time that night, Akaashi was glad Bokuto couldn’t see his face. Akaashi’s body felt like it was on fire.

“Hey, Akaashi,” Bokuto whispered.

“Mm?” Akaashi hummed, not trusting his vocal cords to not skip or croak.

“I love you, Keiji,” Bokuto said, “I love you…”

“Bo… kuto… san?”

Akaashi turned to look at Bokuto, whose chin was still on Akaashi’s shoulder. When he saw Bokuto’s face, he was pissed. Bokuto had fallen asleep on him.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm slow, I'm very picky and very lazy. These things do not mix well unfortunately... There'll probably be only one or two more chapters in this story. More than likely only one. After that I can focus more on "How to Charm a Prince" and my upcoming Kyouhaba fic, which I've got maybe two chapters written for it so far?   
> Anyhow, thanks for reading, I really hope you liked it! :)


	14. Finally

When Bokuto woke up the next day his head was ringing like a bell at new years. Whatever drink Kuroo had been giving him last night tasted great, sweet even, but must have had _a lot_ of alcohol in it if he felt this horrible. Bokuto sat up in his bed, yawned, and scratched his head. He couldn’t remember much from the night before if he were honest with himself. He remembered pestering Akaashi to go hiking with him. He remembered Akaashi finally agreeing, even though they only went to the forest. But after that it was all a blur.

There was a light knock on Bokuto’s door before someone pushed it open, a tray of food in their free hand. Bokuto could practically smell the French toast and bacon from his bed.

“Oh,” the person said, “good, you’re up.”

Ah, it was Kuroo.

Bokuto grinned up at Kuroo and went to wave but winced when the sudden movement made his head throb. Why did alcohol have to give people hangovers and bad memories, why, why, why?

Kuroo slid over to Bokuto, placing the tray down on his lap with a sigh. “How do you feel?” he asked.

Bokuto groaned dramatically and pointed to his head. “Why did you give me so much to drink anyways?”

Kuroo rolled his eyes. “I didn’t. They were all mine, but you kept taking them so I had to keep getting more.”

“Oh, sorry,” Bokuto said sheepishly. “Hey, how did I get home by the way?” he asked, shoving three bacon strips straight and a piece of French toast into his mouth.

“Oh, Akaashi carried you back to his house before passing you off to me,” Kuroo said as he eyed Bokuto suspiciously. When Bokuto didn’t react, he elaborated, “he seemed really pissed. He kept muttering about how you were such an idiot and how he couldn’t believe you,” Kuroo laughed. “He practically threw you at me.”

When Kuroo looked back to Bokuto, he saw that his friend had actually stopped eating and looked like he was on the verge of tears.

“NOOOOO!!!” Bokuto screeched before clutching his head in his hands. One part because of his headache, and around five parts because he had _no idea_ what he did to make Akaashi angry.

“So, what _did_ you do?” Kuroo asked suggestively.

Bokuto flung his arms up wildly. “How am I supposed to know! I blacked out!”

Kuroo laughed nervously, clearly he should have tried to stop Bokuto from drinking so much rather than just letting him take his drinks all night.

“Eh, well, maybe it wasn’t so bad? After all, he did spit water in your face earlier before that right?” Kuroo offered.

“Ah, he did.”

Kuroo hummed, “by the way, what did you say to make him do that? He seemed shocked to say the least.”

“Oh I asked him how much he liked me.”

Kuroo raised an eyebrow and looked at Bokuto, waiting for him to piece what he had just said together.

 _Oh_ , Bokuto thought, eyes widening, _oh shit._

“Kuroo help me!” Bokuto whimpered, clinging onto Kuroo’s sleeve. “If I said that then I probably said something even _worse_ later!”

“Oh, I know you did.”

Bokuto looked up at Kuroo, who was smirking at him. “What?”

“Akaashi told me.”

“He—”

“Yep.” Kuroo crossed his arms. “Don’t worry, I’m sure if you explain it then you should be fine.”

“Explain what!? You never told me—”

Kuroo cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Bro, let me finish,” he laughed. “Akaashi was carrying you back to his place right, so he kept muttering under his breath until he spotted me.” Kuroo laughed and scratched the back of his head. “I had teased him earlier last night so he was probably already on edge… Anyway, he threw you on me and said, ‘ _your idiot friend confessed his love for me and then fell asleep’_ or something, I’m paraphrasing but you get the idea.”

Bokuto released his friends sleeve and stared down at his half eaten breakfast. He had no doubt in his mind that he had royally fucked up to such a degree that he didn’t even know how to fix it this time. He _couldn’t_ apologize, even if he should. It was how he really felt after all, even if he hadn’t wanted to tell Akaashi in that way. If there was anything to apologize for it would be that.

In his mind it would always play out that he would tell Akaashi at the bridge between their houses at sunset. That bridge felt like a special place to Bokuto, so if he was going to do it anywhere, that’s where he would do it. Clearly alcohol didn’t agree with him on that view. So much for that, he guessed. Akaashi was probably pissed, it had even been a party for his birthday.

His birthday…

Today was Akaashi’s birthday!

He was so _fucked._

“Bro, I can see you’re having an existential crisis right now, but it’s really not that bad,” Kuroo said, trying to reassure his friend. “you’ve done way worse.”

“But Kuroo it’s his _birthday!”_ Bokuto yelled, instantly regretting it as his head screeched back in disagreement.

Kuroo shook his head, “you did buy him that present,” he said, gesturing to the birthday bag stuffed with tissue that sat on Bokuto’s desk. “If you just tell him you really meant it and it wasn’t just because you were drunk, _and_ give him that, it’ll work out.”

Bokuto looked over at the present. He had been on a job in Tokyo and passed by the shop selling it and he immediately thought of Akaashi. Surely it was something on Bokuto could have picked out, and he knew that Akaashi probably wouldn’t buy it for himself, nor would any of his Family member buy it for him. It was perfect, at least, Bokuto thought so.

Without another word, Kuroo slid a few Advil tablets onto the tray in Bokuto’s lap. It was a silent, “ _as soon as you can move, go see him,”_ gesture, and Bokuto thanked him endlessly for it. Kuroo was a good friend. More than that, he was his _best_ friend.

-~- 

Around two hours later, Bokuto could _finally_ move. He had showered, eaten, and brushed his teeth. Without even gelling his hair or picking out a cohesive outfit (not that he ever did anyways), Bokuto grabbed Akaashi’s present and bolted out the door to see the person he loved more than anything else.

The winter air burned his lungs as he ran, but it only made him feel more alive. He was going to tell Akaashi he loved him, for real this time. After all these years, he finally felt free. It was strange because he had always been a free person, but hiding his love so vehemently and placed weights in Bokuto’s heart and on his shoulders. With every breath of freezing December air he took in, that weight got a little lighter. With every step he took, his strides became a little faster.

Bokuto’s hair was freezing in some odd position because he had left the house with damp hair, but he didn’t mind. His lungs were burning, but he didn’t mind. His legs were stiff, but he didn’t mind. His heart was pounding like a taiko performance was taking place inside of his chest, but he didn’t mind. Akaashi might slap him, but he didn’t mind because he loved him.

Because he was in love with him.

_He would never mind._

Bokuto let a giddy grin split across his face as he saw Akaashi’s house come into view. Konoha was outside the front door talking to Daichi when he spotted Bokuto running like hell towards them.

“Open the door, Konoha!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

Konoha jolted as Bokuto picked up his pace. He immediately turned away from Daichi, who was stunned, and yanked open the door so fast that he thought he might rip the door from its hinges.

“Bokuto, what are you doing?!” Daichi yelled as Bokuto whizzed past, not bothering to respond.

Bokuto ran through the house and straight to Akaashi’s room with the intent of barging in. Evidently, Akaashi was not in his room because Bokuto had just turned down the hallway when he saw Akaashi come down from the other end, holding a sandwich. Akaashi spotted him and his eyes grew wide in surprise.

“AAAKAAAAAAAAAAAASHIIIIII!”

Akaashi seemed to realize that Bokuto was not going to stop running at him because he braced himself at the very last second and tossed his sandwich aside quickly before he became a bowling pin covered in ham and mustard.

“Bokuto?!” he exclaimed, dropping the honorific in surprise as Bokuto shoved them both to the ground.

Bokuto laid on top of Akaashi, panting for breath and feeling like he had just run a marathon. “A… kaashi…”

Akaashi grabbed Bokuto’s shoulders. “Bokuto-san, you’re- you’re crushing me,” he said weakly.

Bokuto breathed out a heavy sigh and pushed his body up to hover over Akaashi. Akaashi made a face, but Bokuto couldn’t place the emotion.

“I’m sorry,” Bokuto panted and he swore he saw pain flicker across Akaashi’s face. “I shouldn’t have said that to you that way,” he clarified, but Akaashi only looked more hurt by that.

“Bokuto-san get off of me,” he said with a sigh, turning his head away from Bokuto’s gaze.

Bokuto grabbed Akaashi’s face and turned it back to face him, managing to balance on one hand as he stayed above Akaashi. “I still meant it though,” he said and Akaashi’s eyes widened. “I love you.”

Akaashi shoved Bokuto back and turned his face away as he sat up. Bokuto instantly wanted to take back his words, but when he looked back at Akaashi and saw the red tips of his ears he realized he didn’t regret saying anything.

“Oh,” Akaashi said weakly. Bokuto looked to his left and saw the dented bag of his present for Akaashi and picked it up. He tapped Akaashi on the shoulder and held out the bag. Akaashi turned and looked at the bag but not at Bokuto. “For… me?” he asked quietly.

“Happy birthday,” Bokuto said, moving the bag closer to Akaashi as he too, looked away. He finally felt the adrenalin draining from his veins and now realized just how _awkward_ the situation had become.

Slowly, Akaashi pulled out the tissue paper and looked into the bag at his gift.

“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said in a questioning tone, “why is there a key chain with a pea pod attached to this stuffed owl?”

“Oh!” Bokuto exclaimed, moving over to Akaashi’s side. “I had bought the owl first, but then I saw that when I was in downtown Tokyo, it’s a toy!”

“A toy?”

“Yeah!” Bokuto reached over and gently took the keychain from Akaashi’s hands. “See, like this!” He demonstrated, squeezing the pod and causing the plastic peas inside to pop in and out of the silicone pod. “You’re always playing with your fingers and stuff when your nervous so I thought you’d like that,” he says, suddenly a little shyer as he handed the keychain back to Akaashi.

Akaashi squeezed the little pod and smiled before looking back at the white, fluffy stuffed owl in his other hand. “Thank you, Bokuto-san, I love them,” he said, smiling gently at Bokuto.

“R-really?”

“ _Really.”_

Bokuto sighed in relief. He had no doubt Akaashi would like it, but hearing him say so was _very_ reassuring. His mind wandered back to the adrenalin-induced confession he had just made and Bokuto face flared a bright red.

“Ah! Bokuto-san are you okay?” Akaashi asked setting his gift aside and moving closer to Bokuto, concern in his voice.

“T-th… I…” Bokuto stumbled. Akaashi looked at him curiously. “I told you…” Bokuto sucked in a breath and wheezed it back out, “I don’t really need a response,” he said, all in one breath and almost too quickly for Akaashi to catch.

On cue, Akaashi’s face turned to match the scarlet on Bokuto’s as he looked aside. Akaashi stood up and grabbed Bokuto’s gift, putting it back in the bag. For a moment, Bokuto thought he was going to give it back. When he looked up, Akaashi was holding his hand out to help him up. Bokuto gladly took it and brushed off his pants as he stood.

Akaashi pushed his bedroom door open and coughed gently, “let’s go in my room,” he said, pulling Bokuto in by the wrist and slamming the door shut behind them and pulling Bokuto over to the side of his bed, even if neither of them sat down.

Akaashi looked down at his hand, still around Bokuto’s wrist, and pulled it away like Bokuto’s arm had burned him. “S-sorry,” he said, rubbing his arm. Quickly preventing an awkward silence, Akaashi spoke again, “how long?”

“How long, what?” Bokuto asked, confused.

Akaashi gritted his teeth and turned back to Bokuto, “How long have you lo- l—” he stammered, “you know what I mean…”

If Bokuto’s face could get any redder, he was sure it did. His heart beat wildly as he answered. “A while…”

“Do you… do you know when?”

“Since I was 13,” he said.

“Oh,” Akaashi responded. “Since September I think.”

“September? What does September have to do with me being in love with you?” Bokuto asked.

“You didn’t let me finish!” Akaashi exclaimed before readjusting himself. “It’s the same thing… I… about you, I… since September I think, maybe… so…” he mumbled.

Bokuto quirked an eyebrow, “the same?” Akaashi nodded, his blush was violent against his pale skin.

Bokuto pressed his mind for an explanation to Akaashi’s words. Bokuto’s eyes widened in realization. Akaashi felt the same! Akaashi loved him too! Sure, not for as long as Bokuto had loved him, but he didn’t mind. He would _never_ mind. Because Akaashi loved him back. Because he loved Akaashi. Because the world finally fell into place and Bokuto _finally_ felt completed.

Bokuto grabbed Akaashi quickly, circling his arms around Akaashi’s frame so quickly that Akaashi couldn’t even catch his balance before they fell down together for the _second_ time that day. Thankfully, this time there was a soft mattress to catch them. After they landed, Bokuto quickly apologized and tried to crawl off of Akaashi, but Akaashi put a hand on his arm as he looked the other way, stopping him from moving.

Bokuto’s breath caught in his throat, “you love me,” he breathed out.

Akaashi didn’t look at Bokuto, “I… I do…”

“Akaa… no, _Keiji_ ,” he said softly, causing Akaashi’s head to snap back to face him, “I’m in love with you,” he said, heart pounding. “ _Keiji_ ,” he said again. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yes.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter! Thank you all so much for your continued support, I hope you enjoyed my writing!
> 
> I may or my not write an epilogue, but who can say, we will see.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading, I hope to make the next chapters longer as well as get more "mafia" stuff, back stories, and relationship development in and not just pranks. Thanks to my friend Vinny (gothitella on Ao3 and Tumblr) for helping me out some with terms and what not.


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